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CQJKRIGHT DEPOSm 



Dante 



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COLLECTED VERSE 



BY 



GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND 



SECOND EDITION, REVISED 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

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Copyright, 1909 

BY 

GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND 
Copyright, 1916 

BY 

GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND 



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CONTENTS. 



7- DANTE. 

^ PAGE 

T Dante ........ 5 

Notes upon Dante ..... 127 

MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN. 

Greylock ....... 145 

Berlin Mountain ..... 150 

West Mountain . . . . . -157 



PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 




The Last Home-Gathering . . . -171 


Midnight in a City Park 






. 178 


Ideals that Were 






. 183 


The Sailor's Choice 






. 184 


At the Parting op the Ways 






. 188 


The Religion of Rescue 






. 189 


After the Lynching 






. 192 


Righting a Wrong 






196 


She Wonders Why 






200 


iii 









IV 



CONTENTS. 



The Wall-Flower 

Homeless 

The Blizzard 

In the Life Beyond 



PAGE 
20I 
202 
203 
204 



SUGGESTIONS FROM CHURCH, STATE AND 
SOCIETY. 

A Hymn for All Religions .... 209 
The American Pioneer .... 211 

God Bless America . . . . .214 

To the Wife of a Public Man . . .216 

Her Haughtiness . . . . .219 

The Society Leader ..... 222 



LOVE AND LIFE. 



Love and Life 



227 



SONNETS. 




The Leader 


. 277 


The Solitary Singer . 


. 277 


Staking All 


. 278 


Obscurity ..... 


. 279 


Influence - 


. 280 


The Final Verdict 


. 281 



CONTENTS, 



The Chance that Comes to Every Man 

Heredity 

Unconscious Charm 

In the Art Museum 

The Climber 

Sense and Soul 

Class and Caste . 

The Faith that Doubts 

Broadening the Outlook 

Our Affinity 

My Actress . 

The First Fascination 

The Lost Friend . 

For a Book made up of Contributions 

Authors .... 

Ford's Glen, Williamstown . 
Princeton University . 
Princeton Cemetery 

BONAVENTURE CeMETERY, SaVANNAH 

The Grave of Genius . 



from 



PAGE 

281 
282 
283 
284 
284 

28s 
286 
287 
287 
288 
289 
290 
290 

291 
292 

293 
294 
294 
295 



SONGS AND HYMNS. 

Where Dwell the Gods 

All Hail THE God. 

Oh. Not What Life Appears to Be 



299 

300 
302 



VI 



CONTENTS, 



All Hail the Sun 

O Life Divine .... 

O God of All Things Living 

Hail to the Hero Home from Strife 

O Soul, what Earthly Crown 

All Hail the Queen 

We Live but for Bubbles 

Oh, Who has Known 

Two Springs of Life 

In the World of Care and Sorrow 

The Trumpets Call to Action 

Oh, Why do We Care . 

Ah, Boys, When We Fill Our Glasses 

Our Lives are Vapors . 

Money and Man .... 

Just the Thing He Thinks . 

Not Free to Mb .... 

A Fairy Song .... 

Love and Truth .... 

The World that Whirls Forever 

Father of Our Spirits, Hear Us 



PAGE 
302 

304 
305 
306 

307 
308 

309 
310 

3" 

312 

313 
314 
315 
316 

317 
320 
322 
324 
325 
327 



DANTE. 



CHARACTERS. 



Dante (Alighieri) 
(Guido) Cavalcanti 



CiNO (a Pistoja) 

DiNO (Frescobaldi) 

(Cosmo) Don ATI 
SiMONE (Donati) 
(Brunetto) Latini 

Beatrice (Portina) 
Gemma (Donati) 

Bacchina 



The Great Italian Poet. 

A Poet and Patron of Dante, 
about ten years older than he ; 
a Leader of the White Fac- 
tion. 

A Poet and Friend of Dante, 
but somewhat younger than 
he; a Member of the White 
Faction. 

A Poet and Friend of Dante, 
about the same age as he; a 
Member of the White Faction. 

The Leader of the Black Fac- 
tion, and Dante's Enemy. 

Son of Cosmo Donati, and 
Dante's Enemy. 

An aged Teacher of Florence, 
much respected by Dante and 
his Friends. 

A Young Maiden, greatly beloved 
by Dante. 

A Young Maiden, Niece of 
Cosmo Donati, who became 
Dante's Wife. 

A Young Maiden, a companion 
of Beatrice and Gemma. 
3 



4 DANTE. 

Marquis of Malaspina in Lunigiana, a Protector of 

Dante in exile. 
Waitress, Priest, Monk, Messengers, Attendants, 
Chaperon, Young Men, Maidens, and Adherents 
of the White and Black Factions. 

Place and Time, Florence and Italy in the Fourteenth 
Century. 

All the men in the play who are not ecclesiastics 
wear belts from which hang scabbards holding swords. 



A poet like a poem is a product. 

DANTE, I; I, AND III; 2. 

All good thoughts 
That flood the world spring up from single souls; 
And some of these may bless it most when made 
To spend their lives interpreting themselves, 

IDEM, I; 2. 



DANTE. 



OPENING TABLEAU. 

The Piazza di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. 
Backing is the Church of Santa Croce. In front 
of it are the beginnings of a Pedestal. On the 
highest part of this, accompanied by others below 
her, with whom she is playing, is a young girl 
(Beatrice) dressed in a dark crimson frock. 
Below, on the pavement gazing at her, stands a 
schoolboy (Dante), who seems to have been 
suddenly arrested and charmed by her appearance. ^ 

ACT FIRST. 

Scene First: — The same Piazza in Florence, 
arranged for a Fete, as on St. John's Day, 
when, to quote from Federn's Dante, "the 
young men, clad in white, led by the Signor 
d' Amour, went singing and dancing up the 
street of Santa Felicita; and women and girls, 
. . . in wreaths of flowers, partook in the fes- 
tivities; and music and song and ringing bells 

5 



6 DANTE. 

filled the air with joyful sounds ^ Backing at 
the Right, is a bench, at the Left, half-way to the 
Front, is a booth arranged for the fete. In it 
is a table on which are flowers, apparently for 
sale, also at least one bottle of wine and three 
glasses. Entrances at the Right Front and 
Upper, and at the Left Front and Upper. The 
Curtain, as it rises, reveals, at the Back Center, 
the aged Teacher Latini, surromided by three 
young m^w,— Cavalcanti, about thirty years 
of age, and Cino and Dino, about twenty. The 
three hold in their hands pencils and manu- 
scripts which can be easily carried in their 
pockets.^ Behind the table, stands a matron 
serving as a Waitress in the fete. 

Latini. A poet like a poem is a product. 

Cino. I thought him born, not made. 

Latini. And why not both? 

Let nature frame a man to feeh He thinks 
Of what he feels. He feels what touches him. 
The substance of his thought and feeling then 
Is what experience has brought near to him. 

Cino. But men term youth poetic. 

Latini. Rightly too. 

The freshest fires are brightest. But our 
thoughts, 



DANTE. 7 

How e'er they burn and melt, not often flow 
To moulds of nature's rarest imagery, 
Till life has been well sought to find and store 
it. 

Cinq. Then youth should wait for age, and grow 
apace. 
And try no more. 
Latini. O no; it is our trying 

That turns the latch-key of experience, 
Whose door swings inward quite as oft as 
outward. 

Enter — Left Upper — Several Pairs of danc- 
ing Young Men and Maidens. They 
sing: 

How green the grove and blue the sky! 

How gold and red the hedges! 
How thrills the breeze with trills on high, 

That breathe the season's pledges! 
For, O, the spring, in all its prime. 
Has brought the bird its mating-time. 

Enter — Right Upper — Dante. 
Exeunt — Right Front — Dancers. 
Enter — Left Upper — Gemma and Bacchina, 
and between them Beatrice.^ The 
three walk arm in arm, and exchange 



8 DANTE. 

hows with the Gentlemen, Beatrice 
taking especial notice of Dante. 
CiNO (to DiNO, as he looks toward the three). 

A trinity appropriate for St. John's Day! 
DiNO. The poet's graces! 
Cinq (moving toward the three). 

And the poet's models. 
They bring us dies, when our ideas glow, 
To leave their impress and remain ideals. 
Dante, upon seeing Beatrice, seems 
greatly embarrassed, and sits apart by 
himself on the Bench alternately writing 
in a manuscript that he holds, and listen- 
ing to the conversation of the others. ^ 
Beatrice (to Latini). We come to tender you 

our morning greeting. 
Cavalcanti (to DiNo). Nor could the tender 

come more tenderly. 
Latini (shaking hands with the three young 

women). I thank you. 
Bacchina (turning to Ding). Will you recom- 
mend me now? 
Ding. For what? 

Bacchina. Why, if a king's touch cure 

king's evil, 
A master's touch should cure the master's evil. 
Ding. And what is that? 



DANTE. 9 

Bacchina {looking toward Latini). All evil in 

the world, 
To him, is lack of culture. 
DiNO. So you seek 

To come in touch with him? 
Bacchina {laughingly). And with his pupils. 
{Giving her hand to Ding. Both join in the 

dance that follows.) 

Enter — Right Upper — Pairs of Dancing Young 

Men and Maidens. They Sing: 

How keen the glance, and bright the flush! 

How sense the soul resembles! 
How throbs the heart that heed would hush 

Through lips where music trembles! 
For, O, the spring of round and rhyme 
Has brought mankind its mating- time ! 

Exeunt — Left Front — Dancers. 

Enter — Left Upper — Donati. 

Cinq and Ding talk with Gemma and Bacchina. 

Cavalcanti {to Beatrice). You heard what 

Cino said. It all was true. 

The hands of beauty when they touch and 

thrill us 
All leave their imprint on ideas, and thus 
We get ideals. 
Beatrice {laughingly). You poets wing your 
words 



lO DANTE. 

Without the least conception where they wend, 
Like birds with broken feet that keep on 

flying 
From simple inability to perch. 
DoNATi. Ha, ha! 

Cavalcanti {to DoNATi). You heard her then? 
Don ATI. I overheard. 

Cavalcanti {aside to Ding). 

Is always overing something, if he can be. 
DoNATi {to Beatrice). Well said, my Beatrice! 
These flighty minds 
That cut connection with the world's demands 
Are sure to have a limping time of it. 
If ever they get down to useful work. 

(Beatrice laughs and bows, then with 
CiNO joins Gemma and Bacchina at 
the Left where all seem to he helping the 
Matron who has charge of the Table. 
DiNO sits on the Bench beside Dante. 
They exchange, and, apparently, in a 
friendly way, criticise each other's 
writings).^ 
Cavalcanti {replying to Donati's last remark). 
They may prove useful without getting down 
As far as — ^ 
Don ATI. Useful as the splash and spray 

Above the waterfall that works my mill. 



DANTE. II 

Cavalcanti. They play a necessary part. 
DoNATi. You own 

They play? 
Cavalcanti. And play is necessary too. 

Our thoughts are children that must play to 
grow. 

Donati. Say children that when called to work 
must whine. 
These brains that bellow so about their pains, 
Prove mainly their own lack of brawn to bear 
them. 
Cavalcanti. At least, they lead a peaceful life, 
not so? — 
And that is better than a life of brawls. 
Don ATI. Who lead a life of brawls? 
Cavalcanti. I did not say; 

But many a night in Florence is termed black. 
Donati. And many a coward's face is well 

termed white. 
Cavalcanti {drawing his sword, which Donati 
also does). 
Now by my sword ! 
Cino. Nay, nay; but by your sense. 

What fevers both of you is no disease 
That can be cured by surgery. 
Cavalcanti. By what then? 



12 DANTE. 

CiNO (pointing to the table, and rapidly filling 

three glasses from the bottle). 
By stimulants. Accurse to cutting down, 
When one can gulp down! Save your health 

for me, 
And, while you sheathe your swords, pledge 

gratitude 
For such delicious ways of sheathing spirits. 
(Don ATI and Cavalcanti sheathe their swords 
and drink with Cinq.) 
Exeunt — Left Upper — Cavalcanti, Don- 
ATi, and Cino with glasses in hand, fol- 
lowed by the Waitress carrying the bottle. 
(Ding, when he sees them, excusing himself to 
Dante, rises and follows them.) 
Exit — Left Upper — Ding. 
Gemma {to Beatrice, looking toward the Left). 

Ha, ha! 
Beatrice. What set you laughing? 
Gemma. Why, to think 

My uncle's words could turn a poet's thought 
Out of his own conceit — humph ! — long enough 
To take in the conception of another. 
Beatrice. You like not poets then ? 
Bacchina. They like not her. 

Gemma. They might, if they could see me. 
What they see 



DANTE. 13 

Is never in the thing at which they look; 
But, like a halo when it rings the moon, 
All in the clouds, and drawn there by them- 
selves. 
Beatrice. Break through the halo, you might 

find them out. 
Bacchina. Or else be found out by them. 
Gemma. That is it ; 

And by-and-by come tumbling from the 

hights 
Where they, not we, have put us, — in a realm 
Where pebbles all seem palaces, and mounds 

all mounts, 
And clouds all continents, and moons have 

faces, 
And all the littlest stars that prick the sky 
Are spear-points of some huge hobgoblin. 
Beatrice. To think things larger may enlarge 

one's thought. 
Gemma. To think things true when false may 

prove all false. 
Beatrice. Who think the poets' fancies true? 
Their brains, 
Like helmets when their metal is the best. 
Receive the light of life and flash it back. 
None take the flash for fire. 



14 DANWE. 

Gemma. I see you like 

A fancy, flashing fellow! — I the grave 
And thoughtful. 
Beatrice. Fancy is the flower of thought. 

The more of life there is, the more of flower: 
The more of thought there is, the more of 

fancy. 
A bear, you know, has hair upon his cheek. 
And growls, and, now and then, stands up and 

hugs. 
I like men who can prove themselves no brutes. 
(Dante sits staring at Beatrice.) 
Enter — Left Upper — Donati. 
Don ATI {noticing Dante and addressing him). 

Why, Dante, you here?^ 
Dante {rising in embarrassment) . Yes. 
Donati {shaking hands with Dante). Good 
day. 

Gemma {aside to Beatrice and Bacchina). 
His "yes" 
Outsnubs the backset of a tutor's *'no, " — 
Forbids all further effort at expression. 
Donati {to Dante and gesturing toward the 
Young Women). 
You know these ladies, do you not? 
Dante {bowing awkwardly). Yes, yes.^ 



DANTE. 15 

DoNATi. What writing is it that you hold in 

hand? 
(Dante closes his manuscript, and puts it inside 
his cloak.) 
A secret? 
Dante {bowing awkwardly). Yes. 

Exit — Left Upper — Donati, laughing. 
Enter — Right Upper — Cinq. 
(Cinq and Dante sit on the Bench and exchange 

writings.^) 
Gemma {to Young Women at the Left, and re- 
ferring to Dante's manuscript.) 

His own child, probably! 
It flies to cover so much like himself. 
He is a very interesting man. 
Beatrice. You think so? 
Gemma. To himself. When all 

one's eyes 
And ears are turned like his on his own person, 
He bears about both audience and actor. 
Enter — Left Upper — Several Pairs of Dancing 
Young Men and Maidens. They sing: 

How framed in grace and phrased in song, 

How homed in rapture real. 
How won to worth from earth and wrong 

Is love when once ideal! 



l6 DANTE. 

For, O, the spring of life sublime 
Has brought the spirit's mating-time! 

Exeunt — Right Front — Dancers. 

Enter — Left Front — Cavalcanti. 

Cavalcanti {to Beatrice). Our gentle maid 

is here, and yet not dancing? 
Beatrice. Not now, rough master Cavalcanti. 
Cavalcanti. Oh! 

Beatrice. Oh? — We must speak as we are 
spoken to; 
And if I be your maid, your gentle maid, 
You ought to be my master and be rough. 
Cavalcanti. Be rough? — Oh never! I leave 

that to Dante. 
Beatrice. He seems to keep it, too. 
Cavalcanti. Wait, wait, my lady. 

A man may double up his fist and frown, 
And make fiend-faces merely at himself. 
Beatrice. Why so? 
Cavalcanti. Because that self asserts itself; 

And he keeps fighting it to keep it down. 
Beatrice. That self must then be very strong. 
Cavalcanti. It is — 

In Dante. 

Beatrice. Humph!— Is that what troubles 
him? 



DANTE, 17 

Enter — Right Upper — Dino. 
CiNO rises, leaves Dante, and goes to meet 
Dino, where standing at the Right they 
also seem to criticise each other's 
manuscripts.^ 
Cavalcanti. It is with you. You have such 
awful eyes. 
They hush him so his inward soul stops think- 
ing; 
And then his outward mien plays pedagogue 
And whips himself to make himself behave. 
Beatrice. A very strange man ! 
Cavalcanti. You should not say that. 

Just think how hot he must be in his heart 
To make him warp and shrink up as he 

does 
When you come near. 
Beatrice. He does not act that way 

With others? 
Cavalcanti. No. 
Beatrice. Some people act that way 

With cats. Kind souls then shoo these off. 
Beatrice joins Gemma and Bacchina, and, 

presently, 

Exeunt — Left Front — Gemma, Beatrice, and 

Bacchina. 



1 8 DANTE. 

DiNO {looking at the Young Women, to Cino). 
A poet has to pose, to prose himself 
Sufficiently for some companionship. 
CiNO. To one who wed her, she would prove 
to be 
A pretty but a pert Lupatto-dog, 
And snarl at all who did not master her. 
DiNO {looking sharply at Dante). 

But why does Dante gaze at Gemma so? 
Finds her inspiring? — I would rather risk, 
Without a disenchanting yell or yolp. 
Extracting teeth than thought from such a 
mouth. 

Exeunt — Right Front — Cinq and Ding. 
Dante {rising and speaking to Cavalcanti, 
who has approached him). 
Say, Cavalcanti, did you hear those words? — 
"Why does he gaze at Gemma?" — did you 

hear? 
Say, Cavalcanti, did you hear? — "at Gemma"? 
They must imagine — ^ 
Cavalcanti. Yes, they must imagine. 

They never could have seen it with their eyes. 
Dante. Seen what? 

Cavalcanti. Now, Dante, I have made no 

claim 
To be your soul's confessor; but you know 



DANTE. 19 

That I have guessed to whom you wrote your 
verses ; 

And you have not denied it. — Was it Gemma? 
Dante. The next time that men watch me, 

they shall think so.^ 
Cavalcanti. And why? 

Dante. No doubt, no thought! What men 
conceive 

They comprehend, they cease to guess about. 
Cavalcanti. Would you deceive them? 
Dante. What men have no right 

To know, one has no right to let them know. 

Because my soulless will has made me brute, 

And kept me staring like a pointer-cur 

As if to turn to prey the very one 

I most revere, must then my voice, forsooth, 

Bark out an insult in the same direction? 
Cavalcanti. I did not say that, boy; but it 
were strange 

To see you start to play the very game 

That you blame me for. 
Dante. Nay, I should not say 

My love sought more than one. 
Cavalcanti. Nor I, you know — 

Were it not true. 
Dante. Oh, fickle Cavalcanti! 



20 DANTE. 

Cavalcanti. Your humming bees may sip the 

sweets they need 
From every flower; and why not humming 

poets? 
Dante. They were not made to sting, nor 

souls for stinging. 
The poets are not lesser men but greater ; 
And so should find unworthy of themselves 
A word or deed that makes them seem less 

worthy. 
A man should court but one, and marry 

her. 
Cavalcanti. And mar the lives of all he does 

not marry? 
Dante. Nay, nay; be true to one, and let the 

church — 
Cavalcanti. The church can but confirm a 

fact that is, — ^ 
A love that lives already in the soul. 
Not outside hands, though reaching down 

from heaven, 
Can push inside of it what is not there, 
Nor keep love inside, would it then pass 

out. 
You deem it wise or good, humane or Godly, 
To doom a boy for one mistake in mating 
To everlasting punishment on earth ? 



DANTE. 21 

Enter — Left Front — Gemma. 

Ah, Mistress Gemma, Master Dante here 

Was looking at you, so that I rebuked him. 
Gemma. Was looking — and at what? 
Cavalcanti. Why, I should say 

Your ribbons — things that he could tie to. 
Dante. Oh! 

Cavalcanti. But that was what we just were 
talking of, — 

A something on the earth, and it wears ribbons, 

That one can tie to. 
Gemma. Making free, I think, 

With my own ribbons! 
Cavalcanti. No, no; making them 

So they would not be free. 
Gemma. Yes, they might choke me. 

Dante. And what a pity that would be ! 
Gemma. Why so? 

Dante. These choking throats make faces red. 
Gemma. Make red? 

Dante. Yes; yours I never yet saw read. It 
seemed 

A readless riddle. 
Gemma. It could riddle you. 

Dante. Oh, no; you would not judge enough 
was in me 

To justify the jog. Why tap a void? 



22 DANTE. 



Enter — Right Front — Beatrice. 
Cavalcanti goes to her. Dante, standing 
at the Left with his hack to the Rights 
does not see her. 
Gemma {to Dante). You may be right, — more 

right than you suppose. 
Dante. More right than I suppose? — It is not 
often 
One does me so much honor. 

{They continue talking at the Left.) 
Beatrice {to Cavalcanti, while she stands at 
the Right looking at Dante). 

Yes, I read 
The song you say that Dante wrote about me. 
But were he truthful, did he feel it all, 
It were but natural for him to speak 
To me. 
Cavalcanti. He is an artist. 
Beatrice. What of that? 

Cavalcanti. You know there were no art, 
were there no forms 
Of nature in which art could frame its tribute. 
But many an artist, for this reason, fears 
To emphasize the part he finds in nature 
Lest it outdo the part he finds in self; 
So often that which seems most natural 
The one thing is that he will not let seem so. 



DANTE. 23 

Beatrice {looking toward Gemma). 

How smitten he is with her! i^ 
Cavalcanti. Whom — with Gemma? 

Beatrice. Of course. 
Cavalcanti. You think so? 

Beatrice. See him hold 

her hand. 

Cavalcanti. If your hand were where hers is, 
I beheve 
His own would tremble so he could but drop 
it. 
Gemma {to Dante, while he takes her hand as if 
to hid good-bye) . 
But had I no imagination? 
Dante. Then, 

I could not see my image in you, could I? 
And if — to quote you — I but think of self, 
You could not make me think of anything. 
Gemma. I could not help you much then? 

Exit — Right Front — Beatrice. 
Dante. No; not if 

Myself be what I think. 

(Gemma and Dante how to each other.) 
Exit — Left Front — Gemma. 
(Dante takes his manuscript from his pocket, and 
he gins to write.) 



24 DANTE. 

Cavalcanti {approaching, and laying his hand 
on Dante's shoulder). 

What are you doing? 
Dante. Am writing. 
Cavalcanti. Yes, I saw that. — Writing 

what? 
Dante. What comes to me. ^^ 
Cavalcanti {with a gesture toward the Left 
Front), 

From her? 
Dante. Yes, partly 

so; And partly from myself. 
Cavalcanti. You write it down 

To save it? 
Dante. Yes, and save myself. You know 

That writing is my mission. ^^ 
Cavalcanti. What was that 

Which she suggested? 
Dante {after hesitating a moment). Why some 
minds that try 
To be in touch with ours but tickle them ; 
•Or vex an itching that can merely fret us. 
Withal, too, they but scratch the brain's out- 
side; 
And then, as if they took the hair for thought, 
Exhibit this, when tossed and puffed, as prov- 
ing 



DANTE. 25 

How they themselves have thus our brain de- 
veloped. 
Cavalcanti {laughing heartily, then taking from 
his pocket a manuscript poem) . 
No touch like that, though, led you to write 

this, 11 
Why is it, boy, you hold your love so secret ? 
Dante. Had you a glimpse of God like no one 
else's 
You would not speak of it? 
Cavalcanti. Why not? 

Dante. It might 

Subject Him to the insult — might it not? — 
Of human doubt? 
Cavalcanti. You are a strange soul, Dante. 

Dante. You think my verses good? 
Cavalcanti. Both good and bad. 

Dante. Why bad? 

Cavalcanti. Oh, not so fierce! Not you are 
bad; 
And not your verses when they come from you. 
Dante. From whom else could they come? 
Cavalcanti. I seem to hear 

The echoes through them of your masters. 
Dante. Good ones! 

Cavalcanti. Good masters give us methods 
but not models. 



26 DANTE. 

You write as one who rests in a ravine 
Recording but what others have beheld 
Above where he dare venture. 
Dante. You would have me? — • 

Cavalcanti. Climb up, or soar — 
Dante. But how? 

Cavalcanti. The spirit's wings 

Are grown, not given, unfold within oneself. 
But you — you get both word and thought 
from others. 
Dante. You mean my Latin? 
Cavalcanti. Yes, I mean your Latin. ^ 2 

Dante. The words of Virgil and the Christian 
Church, — 
The thoughts that live like spirits in the 

words, 
And save our own thought through what they 
incarnate ! 
Cavalcanti. The thought they save should 
be your own, my Dante. 
Are you a Roman? You should be Italian ^^ 
With theme and language fitted for Italians. 
To lift the lives of common men, it is. 
That poems make the common seem uncom- 
mon. 
Their richest boon, believe me, that which 
brings 



DANTE, 27 

To him who reads an inward consciousness 
Of oneness with the spirit that indites them, 
And its own oneness with the loftiest spirit. 

Dante. The poet's tool is his poetic tongue. 

Cavalcanti. 'Tis not the tongue that makes 
the bell ring sweet; 
It is the metal of the bell itself. 

Enter — Right Front — Messenger. 
{to Messenger.) 
Good day. You seem excited. 

Messenger. Yes, I am. 

Will never fate decree a time of rest 
For Florence? 

Cavalcanti. Not while wide awake! What 
now? 

Messenger. A courier has just come speeding 
in. 
He says the Ghibellines take arms again, ^^ 
Have fresh recruits enlisted at Arezzo, 
Have fortified the castle at Caprona, 
And gather now in force at Campaldino. 

Dante. And we do nothing? 

Messenger. Yes, Donati's Blacks 

Like flocks of feeding crows we pelt with peb- 
bles 
Are flying all to saddle. 

Dante. We should follow. 



28 DANTE. 

Cavalcanti. And follow him? — no, no.^ X 

Dante. Not follow him? — 

Not that great fighter? 
Cavalcanti. What? — you call him 

great ? — 
Mere bluffer of some baby brawls in Florence ? 
The flimsiest nerve can fret to feel a flea. 
Dante. But those who fight when no one needs 

to fight — 
Cavalcanti. Are foes to public order. ^^ Why, 
you seem 
To deem all people patriots like yourself. 
A little rill just starting from a spring 
Could not be quite so gushing fresh as you are ! 
I love you, boy; but when the rill has rubbed 
A little more of soil from both its banks 
'T will have more substance if not quite 
So much transparency. 
Enter — Left Upper — Beatrice, Gemma, and 

Bacchina. 
Unseen by Dante, they busy themselves with 

the flowers on the table. 
Dante. Yet, Cavalcanti, 

There Is but one thing now for us to do. 
Do two things, and we do the thing they 
plan, — 



DANTE. 29 

To fight both Black and White, and each time 

half 
Our full defence. Now who remembers faction 
Forgets his Florence. 
Cavalcanti. True! — and you would 

fight? 
Dante. For right to serve the Church and 

Italy?— 
Fight those whose flags all fly to signal 

traitors ? — 
Fight those who all, like base train-bearers, 

come 
To smother down the freedom of the city 
Beneath an emperor's cloak whose utmost 

edge 
Is fringed with bleeding spears? — Were I a 

moth 
In a rug their crowd came trampling, I should 

fight- 
Ay, with my mouth, too, as you seem to ask — 
And keep on fighting there, until I wrought 
My way to something that could not be tram- 
pled. 
Cavalcanti. All right, boy, you shall have 

your chance. We go. 
Exeunt — Right Front — Cavalcanti, Dante, and 
Messenger. 



30 DANTE, 

Enter — Left Front — Latini, Cino, and Dino. 
Beatrice {referring to Dante's words that all 
have evidently overheard) . 

And that is Dante ! 
Beatrice, Gemma, and Bacchina come toward 

the Left Front. 
Latini. Yes, the actual Dante. 
Beatrice. His words and ways have seemed 
so void of grace, 

To say not grit ! 
Latini. In temperaments like his 

The form is but the signal of the spirit. 

We never judge a flag by gawky flops 

Against a wind-forsaken pole ; but by 

Its flying when it feels the breath of heaven. 
Beatrice. He seemed a woman; now he seems 

all man. 
Latini. And both are fit in one ordained to be 

A representative of all things human. 

If he by nature be a poet, then 

He should by nature be in substance that 

Which art demands of him in semblance. 
DiNO. Cino, 

We should go home. 
Cino. What for? 

DiNO. To put on kilts, 

And show ourselves half women. 



DANTE. 31 

Latini. Nay, without that, 

My Dino, you can prove your womanhood; 

For who but women take all words to heart, 

And think each point we make must point 
toward them? 
Exeunt — Right Front — Latini, Cino, and Dino. 
Gemma. He may be right; but men half done, 
like eggs 

Half boiled, are very soft. I much prefer 

To have them hard. 
Bacchina. How strange! 

Gemma. Why strange? 

Bacchina. Because 

I thought we always liked our opposites. ^ ^ 
Beatrice. You mean? 

Gemma. Ay, you do well to call her 

mean. 

If when we walk, we bring our weeds with us, 

We cannot hope our air will smell of roses. 
Bacchina. Aha ! Humph ! — That explains it ! 
Gemma. What? 

Bacchina. The way 

You take in breath {tossing up her head and 
nose). 
Gemma. Look up, not down, eh? — I 

Would rather snatch at birds than dig for 
worms. 



32 DANTE. 

Bacchina. Have pity, Gemma! Shell your 
thoughts before 
You fling them at us — are so hard to crack! 
You surely would not have them crack our 
skulls? 
Gemma. Crack moulds of jelly! Your skulls 
were more soft 
Than that to be indented by a Dante. 
Enter — Right Upper — Cavalcanti and Dante. 
The Young Women are at the Left, and do not 

notice their hearers, 
Beatrice. A steed we drive, a stream that 
floods its banks, 
Has not less force because its gait is gentle. 
And you, you heard his call a moment since 
To Cavalcanti who behind him leads 
The half of Florence ! 'T was a call as brave 
As ever yet were eagles', when their beaks 
Tear out the intruder's heart, though twice 

their size, 
Who comes to steal the young within their 
nests. 
While Beatrice is speaking Dante takes out his 

manuscript and writes. 

Exeunt — Left Front — Bacchina, Gemma, and 

Beatrice. 



DANTE. 33 

Dante {to Cavalcanti, referring to Beatrice's 

words) . 
Ah, Cavalcanti, should my sword not save 
The soul within me, when the strife comes on, 
No welcome could await in realms beyond 
So sweet, so sacred, as I just have heard !^5 

Cavalcanti. Stay here, boy, stay! To make a 
worthy fight, 
A man should put his heart in what he does. 
Your heart is lost. It will be left behind you. 

Dante. There, there, again, you will not under- 
stand me. 

Cavalcanti. Now Dante! 

Dante. Yes, you think my heart would stay 
When she it is has flung it toward the fight. 
What love I have, inspires me in my soul ; 
And, like the soul, it must express itself 
Through every fibre binding me to life ; 
And like the soul, too, I believe it comes 
From some far realm divine to make divine 
Myself, my world, and all that dwell in it. 
A man who feels like this, and would not fight 
For church and state and home, would be a 
devil. 

Cavalcanti. And how long, think you, in a 
world like ours, 
That you can feel like this? 



34 DANTE. 

Dante. As long as love 

Like what I have inspires me. 
Cavalcanti. Should it fail? 

Dante. Then you nor anyone could longer find 
In me a friend. All any life is worth 
Lies in its possibilities of love. 
Cavalcanti. But were love's object lost? — 
Dante. One cannot lose 

What is eternal. Hearts must always keep, 
If not their love, what love has made of them. 
Enter — Left Upper — The Young Men and 
Maidens who were the Dancers in the 
earlier part of this Act; hut the Men are 
equipped for battle and walk seriously 
and the Maidens follow them with every 
indication of anxiety. Cavalcanti and 
Dante, the latter putting his manuscript 
in his pocket, join them. 
Exeunt — Right Front — Omnes. 

Curtain. 



Scene Second: — The same Piazza, not arranged 

for a fete. The rising curtain reveals Latini, 
DiNO and other citizens of Florence, also 

Women. 
Enter — Right Front — Cavalcanti and Cino. 

Latini {shaking hands with Cavalcanti). 
And so you have returned victorious. 

Dino. Thanks to Donati! 

Cavalcanti. Thanks to him I fear. 

Dino Why fear it? 

Cavalcanti. One should always fear the 

hand 
That taps a leaking jail to flood its faction. ^ ^ 
Who breaks one law may live to break another. 
This very latest victory was gained 
Against the orders on our side, as well 
As those that they opposed upon the other. 

Dino. So much the stronger he ! 

Latini. Beware of strength 

That, like the brute's, is wielded not by reason. 
Except by reason thought was never forced 
For its own good. 

Dino. But if, in some just cause? — 

35 



36 DANTE. 

Latini. In lands where law supports the right, 
to seek 
To rise by breaking legal barriers 
Is worse than climbing up a dizzy stair 
By leaning on a broken bannister. 
Ding. You may be right; but few will think 
you so. 
The man who tramples on his country's foes 
Treads upward toward a hight, however 

gained, 
Where all his countrymen look up to him. 
Cinq. And now but one can rival him. 
Latini. That one? 

Cinq. Is Dante. 
Latini. Dante? 

CiNO. Yes, our Dante ! Oh, 

You should have seen him when the battle 

came. 
He led the last charge, speeding on a steed ^^ 
Well nigh as white as was the air it slid 

through, 
His form bent down as if to hurl his head 
Against their lines, and, by sheer force of 

brain, 
Burst through them. Faster than the follow- 
ing wind 
He flew, as if the blast that urged him on 



DANTE. 37 

Were some last trump of Gabriers, and the 

soul 
Could fear no ills, for it had passed beyond 
them. 

(looking toward the Right Upper) 
I think him coming now. 
Latini. He is. 

DiNO. And with him 

Comes Donati. 
CiNO. Watching well the man 

That brought him victory. 
Cavalcanti. Too well, I fear! 

You give to one who never gives to others, 
He first will recognize you as a dupe, 
And then prepare to treat you as a prey. 
DiNO. They fought for Florence. 
Cavalcanti. Dante, not Donati. 

He fights that all may follow his own standard. 
Enter — Right Upper — Dante, Donati, Simone, 
and Others of the Blacks. 
Enter — Left Upper — Populace. 
Populace. Hurrah for Dante! 
Dante. Nay, nay; say Donati. 

A Citizen. The charge that clove their line 

for us was yours. 
Dante. Praise not the spears that split the 
foeman's mail, 



38 DANTE. 

But praise the brain whence came the skill 
that aimed them. 

Dante shakes hands with Latini, Cino, 
DiNO, and Others, then takes out his 
manuscript and begins to write, and, 
after a while, to talk with Cavalcanti 
at the Left Front. 
Exeunt — Left Front — Latini, Cino, Dino, and 

the Populace. 
Simone {to Donati, at extreme Right and re- 
fering to Dante's words). 
Well said! 
Donati. It was. That soft thing termed 

a sponge 
Will always hug you, when in touch with it. 
But no one finds the least impression left 
When you are not in touch with it. 
Simone. I see. 

You think then that he fears you in your pres- 
ence. 
Donati. I think he may not fear me in my 

absence. 
Simone. You doubt him? 

Donati. When I choose a fol- 

lower. 
My standard must be followed, — not his own. 



DANTE, 39 

He lets his own thought lead him; and you 

know- 
Men led by thought are often led to doubt. 
SiMONE. One thinking follower might make 
men believe 
Your other followers were controlled by 
thought. 
Don ATI {laughingly). You think a thug could 

ever pose as thinker? 
Enter — Right Upper — Gemma and Bacchina and 

another Woman. 
Gemma {to Donati, and looking toward Dante). 

And is it true he led the charge? 
Donati. They say so. 

A brave man, Gemma! but, of course, you 

know it ; 
Has dared to press a suit with you, I hear. 

(Gemma nods.) 
A hero, yes ! You might not go amiss — 
I mean remain a Miss — had he his way. 
(Gemma looks toward Dante. Donati contin- 
ues to SiMONE.) 

If made a member of our family, 

He might prove ours in all things. Few have 

brains 
Too cool and clear to feel a rise in blood 
And not be fevered and confused by it. 



40 DANTE, 

No poison paralyzes thought like pride; 
No pride as poisonous as family pride. 
Bacchina {to Gemma, and looking toward 
Dante.) 
Oh, one could give a world of common men 
For just one armful of a man like that! 
Other Woman. He must have trained his eyes 
when he was flying. 
They look as deep down through one as 

an eagle's, 
Ay, not as if belonging to the senses 
But to the soul! 
Gemma. You think so? 

Other Woman. Think so? — Yes. 

How broad his chest is! — Look! — and how it 

heaves! 
Hard work, I think, but thrilling work as 

well, 
To keep inside of it a spirit grand 
As his! 
Bacchina. Note you his graceful limbs, and 
how 
He poises at the waist, as if about 
To leap to some fair realm of beauty which 
His flesh enrobes but cannot realize ! 
Cavalcanti {to Dante at the extreme Left Front) . 
One whose position lifts him where the crowd 



DANTE. 41 

Look up to him should never use the station 

To drag up low down brutes like this Donati. 
Dante. I only spoke the truth. 
Cavalcanti. Cook soup for swine! 

They leave you, if they fail to find it swill; 

Or else, in greed to get it, trip and tramp you. 

They harm you for your help; and still stay 
swine. 
Dante. But surely I meant right. 
Cavalcanti. Perhaps you did ; 

But when we find men saying they meant 
right, 

We find most others thinking they went 
wrong. 
Dante. You doubt me? 
Cavalcanti. It were hard not doubting one 

Who turns against his own. 
Dante. You mean? 

Cavalcanti. I mean 

Exactly what I say. A little black, 

If mixed with white, may soil the white as 
much 

As all black would. 
Dante. Yourself had been all black, 

And lost for Florence all its liberty. 

Had I myself not urged you to the fight. 

'T is only justice, gratitude, to own it. 



42 DANTE. 

Cavalcanti. Unjust, ungrateful, am I ? — What 
are you 
To fling these taunts at one who merely 

seeks 
To snatch you from the toils of your own 

folly? 
The world you think in is a world of fancy. 
The world all live in is a world of fact. 
Exit — Left Front — Cavalcanti. 
(Dante looks after him, then takes out his manu- 
script and writes. 
DoNATi {to SiMONE, and looking toward Dante 
and Cavalcanti). 
They must have quarreled. 
SiMONE. Yes, it looks like that. 

DoNATi. It does; and, when our enemies fall 
out, 
'T is time that we ourselves fall in. For then 
They fight for their own cause with half their 

force, 
And with the other half they fight for us. 
SiMONE. I judge 't was Cavalcanti's jealousy 

That caused the jar. 
DoNATi. And their twin poet-natures. 

When minds are filled so full of light conceits, 
Chipped off like clippings from substantial 
concepts, 



DANTE. 43 

They store fit kindling-wood, wh,:^ comes a 

friction, 
To burst in flame. You know I always hold 
A dreaming man is not a dangerous foe ; 
For dreams portend their opposites. Just 

when 
He wings his whims to heaven, he wakes in 

hell. 
Ay, ay, a foe deficient in his brain 
Is quicker vanquished than if so in body; 
For he whose reason fails him in the fray 
Fights like a knight unbuckling his own mail. 
Exeunt — Right Front — Donati and Simone. 
(Gemma and Bacchina who have been near the 

Right Upper approach Dante.) 
Bacchina {to Dante). You know how all are 
talking of you? Oh, 
Your ears must flame ! 
Dante {putting his manuscript in his pocket). 
If flaming high enough, 
I might then look like Moses. 
Bacchina. But suppose 

They talked against you? 
Dante. I would act like him. 

Bacchina. Be meek? 

Dante. Oh, yes; as meek as he was when 

He took down Aaron's calf. 



44 DANTE. 

Bacchina. Whose calf is here? 

Dante. Why theirs who rather would look 
back to Egypt 
Than forward to a promised land. 
Gemma. You mean 

The poet's land? 
Dante. It might mean that to you. 

Bacchina. Why not? — The poet's is the prom- 
ised land, — 
Is always promised, but it never comes. 
Gemma. Some think that he would fly to it. 
Dante. Why not? 

Some minds would walk and some would fly. 

You fear 
That those who fly all fail to leave a foot- 
print? 
Gemma. You seem despondent. You have 
quarreled — eh ? — 
With Cavalcanti? 
Dante. We exchanged some words. 

Bacchina. And flung them hard to make them 
hurt the thing 
They hit, not so? — They made your faces red. 
Dante. The day is warm — and pleasant. 

Bacchina laughs and turns away. 
Exit — Right Front — Bacchina and Other Wo- 
man. 



DANTE. 45 

Gemma. Should be ; yes — 

For one like you, whom it has proved a hero. 
Dante. A hero? 

Gemma. That is what the whole town says. 

Dante. I did but do my duty. 
Gemma. That is what 

But very few do. It gave you your chance. 
Dante. So pigmies, did one plod with them, 
might give 

A little common man a chance of greatness. 
Gemma. Of course. 
Dante. Well, I would rather work with 

giants. 
Gemma. Why? 

Dante. They could lift me up above myself. 
Gemma. But you — you do not need that. 
Dante. Not ?— Not I ?— 

When I am lingering here to learn from you? 
Gemma. My uncle and the people — you have 
heard them — 

Would all give you an uplift. 
Dante. When the heart 

Sinks deep as mine, touch deft enough to reach 
it 

Requires a single hand, not many. 
Gemma. You 

Intend to flatter? 



46 DANTE, 

Dante. Do I? 

Gemma. You appear 

To question me. 
Dante. One never questions — does he? — 

A thing in which he takes no interest ? 
Enter — Left Upper — Cavalcanti and Beatrice, 

and stand watching them. 
Gemma. I interest you then ? 
Dante. Yes, all things do. 

Gemma. That holds no flattery. 
Dante. What? — to treat a maid 

As if confounding her with all things? 
Gemma {looking toward the Right Front). There 

My uncle comes. I think would speak to you. 

Exeunt — Right Front — Dante and Gemma. 
Beatrice {looking after them). He seems atten- 
tive to her. 
Cavalcanti. Yes, and goes 

To meet Donati. 
Beatrice. Is It she, or he, 

That draws him toward the Blacks? 
Cavalcanti. No fish are 

drawn 

Except by hooks first baited to their taste. 
Beatrice. He has a taste then for your enemies ? 
Cavalcanti. I do not know. 
Beatrice. You doubt him? 



DANTE. 47 

Cavalcanti. No ; I mourn him. 

Beatrice. You may be right. 'Tis hard to 

make him out. 
Cavalcanti. And harder, if you make him out, 
to say it. 
At times, us men who think we understand 

him 
He welcomes but like strangers pushing in 
The front door of one's house before they 
knock. 
Beatrice. His poems plead with me, his lips 
with her. 
His brain seems like a bat's at blazing noon 
That works but to work out some inward 

whim 
And aims at nothing. ^^ 
Cavalcanti. Nay ; it aims at all things. 

Perhaps it might be wise to let him know 
Your judgment of him. 
Beatrice. How could that be done? 

Cavalcanti. If when one come to pluck a rose, 
he finds 
It grows on thorns, he may become more 
cautious. 
Beatrice. Would that be friendly? 
Cavalcanti. Are our foremost 

friends 



48 DANTE. 

The ones who first forget our faults, or fail 
Of effort to correct them? 
Beatrice. Did we turn 

Our preferences to pedagogues, and school 
The souls that came to us for sympathy, 
Though best of friends, we might seem worst 
of foes. 
Enter — Right Front — Dante followed by Cinq. 
Cavalcanti. We quarreled lately. Notice me 
ignore him. 

(Cavalcanti and Beatrice pass Dante 
without bowing to him although they bow 
to CiNO. Dante sits in distress on the 
bench i^.) 
Exeunt — Right Front — Cavalcanti and Bea- 
trice. 
Cinq {to Dante, sitting down beside him). 

What is it? 
Dante. Why, you saw! They were 

my friends. 
Oh what a world is this for souls to live in !— 
For spirits whose one deepest wish it is 
To think at one with others like themselves, 
And all together think one thought of God ! 
But here one knows no wishes not imprisoned 
Where all the implements to set him free 



DANTE. 49 

Are but these clumsy tools of breath and 
brawn. 
Cinq. Some understand us. 
Dante. You, perhaps, not me! — 

My soul is but an alien on the earth. 

And alien most to this brute frame of mine 

That never lets me do the thing I would ; 

So what I like not, it attracts to me; 

And what I like and love, it drives away. 
CiNO. This on the day the people cheered you so ? 
Dante. You think I craved their cheering? 
No, not that. 

I only want the best I have within 

To be made better and believed, and then 

Received by those about me. 
Cinq. They all know 

How you have fought for Florence. 
Dante. Do they know 

How I would have them live, so none should 
need 

To fight for her? Think you 't is by the sword 

That one can set a soul, while living, free? 

Ah, not by deeds but dreaming does the spirit, 

Itself uplifted, lift up those about it. 
Cinq. So you remain a poet! 
Dante. I remain 

What heaven has made me. 



50 DANTE. 

CiNO. Does it come from 

heaven? 
Dante. It comes from all in life that is worth 

living. 
Enter — Left Upper — Two Messengers from the 

Blacks. 
Enter — Right Upper — A Messenger from the 

Whites. 
Messenger from Blacks {to Dante, who 
with CiNO rises). Donati and the leaders 
of the Blacks 
Will dine to-night at Carpi's. They await 
you. 
Messenger from Whites {to Dante). And 
Cavalcanti and the Whites will dine 
At Rondinelli's. They await you, too. 
Messenger from Blacks. Our invitation was 

the first. 
Messenger from Whites. And mine 

The best. 
Messenger from Blacks {drawing sword). 

Then prove it. 
{The other Messenger from Blacks also draws 

his sword.) 
Messenger from Whites {drawing sword). 

You are two to one ; 
And that is one too many. 



DANTE. 51 

Dante {drawing his sword to separate them). 

Here, fight fair! 
Messenger from Blacks. You think your 
own fair play — against my side 
And back? 
Dante. I would not harm you, I would 

keep 
You both from harming one another. 
Messenger from Blacks. Oh! 

Enter — Right Upper — Cavalcanti and Bea- 
trice. 
(Dante does not notice them). 
Dante {to Messengers). No flattery for your- 
selves! In times like these 
A man would kick apart the meanest curs 
That snarled and snapped each other for the 

bone 
Beside the city gate, and so save all 
That all might still keep watch for Florence. 
Messenger FROM Blacks. Ah, 

You think when you have cursed us all as curs 
That this will keep the city's peace? 
Messenger from Whites. Well, well; 

No man that calls me cur but I call down. 
Cavalcanti. What is it? Wait here. 
{Motions to Messenger op Whites who falls 
back.) 



52 DANTE. 

Beatrice. I have sometimes heard 20 

That whom the gods destroy they first make 

mad. 
What pity it would be, did Florence fall, 
Because of one defender less to save her! 
When foes assail our hights they all should 

look 
To find us marshalled here in unity 
With all our differences hid as deep 
As are the lowest things the valley shadows. 
Messenger from Whites. You may be right. 
Messenger from Blacks {sheathing his 
sword, as do also the others). 

Some things that may go wrong 
Are righted by the touch of circumstance. 
Cavalcanti. All things are righted by the 
touch of reason. 
Without it men are but base tools of passion, 
And all their world here, the abode of 
brutes. 
Dante {to Messengers). Your pardon, gentle- 
men ; but I must dine 
In my own home to-night. I thank you 
much. 
Exeunt — Right Front — Cavalcanti, Beatrice, 

and Messenger from Whites. 
Exit — Left Front — Messengers from Blacks. 



DANTE. 53 

Dante {to Cino, taking out his manuscript and 
looking towards Beatrice). 

Do your wrists, ankles, thighs, and arms, all 
ache? 
Cino. All ache? 
Dante. Yes, ache. 

Cino. How so? 

Dante. They ache, I say! 

At times with too much joy, as if a-tremble 

To fly above, yet bound by brawn below; 

Or when you feel insulted, slighted, sad, 

They do not ache then, either? 
Cino. No, not mine. 

Dante. You never feel your soul here in your 

nerves? 
Cino. No, no. 
Dante. My nerves are weaker, then, than 

yours. 
Cino. Your soul may then be stronger. 
Dante. Say not that. 

Cino. And better! 
Dante. Nay; no friendship that is true 

Was ever caught or kept by flattery. 

No ; I am weaker, maybe worse. 
Cino. Take care! 

The modest may be more unjust to self 

Than are the egotistic to their fellows. 



54 DANTE. 

Dante. If just or not just to myself, who knows 
it? 
Why even you, you do not feel as I do. 
Why should a soul, whose one wish is to be 
Akin with others — understood, — be made 
So different? 
Cinq {pointing to Dante's manuscript). My 
Dante, all good thoughts 
That flood the world spring up from single 

souls ; 
And some of these may bless it most when 

made 
To spend their lives interpreting themselves. 
Dante {putting his manuscript in his pocket). 
I thank you ; but I fear that any soul 
That needs to be interpreted, before 
It gains the common love of common men — • 
For this alone is all for which I long — 
Dwells in the doom of some uncommon 
curse. 
CiNO. Do not think that. 

Dante. And wherefore should I not? 

Here stood two parties. Each I strove to 

serve. 
With what result ? — a brawl befitting wolves, 
Till I, dishonored bone of their contention, 
Am snarled aside. 



DANTE. 55 

CiNO. An hour ago, they praised you. 

Dante. What care I for the masses' praise or 
blame ? 
But larger atoms of earth's common dust, 
If whirled against one or away from one, 
They cannot fill or empty thus the sphere 
Where dwells the spirit. Let them come or go. 
My soul desires not many things but much — • 
Ah yes, and too much, too much, as it seems! 

Enter — Left Front — Gemma and Other Women. 

Cinq {looking toward them). 
Is that what you desire? 

Dante. You said just now 

The world could not interpret my desire. 
There is but one — and all things work to make 
My presence to that one misrepresent me. 

Gemma {approaching with a garland in her hand, 
and addressing Dante). 
Yes, it is brought for you. 

Dante. For me? 

Gemma. For you. 

The knight whose hard strife keeps our soil 

our own, 
As much as gardeners who keep it growing, 
Deserves the garland that is got from it. 

Enter — Right Upper — Beatrice and Caval- 
CANTi, unseen by Dante. 



56 DANTE. 

Dante {to Gemma and ike Women, as he takes 
the garland), 
I thank you. Fitting too, it is that these 
That represent the beautiful in nature 
Should represent it, too, in human form. 
What man could fail to do his best to gain 
The city's best in symbol and in substance ! 

{Bowing to Gemma, then looking up and seeing 
Beatrice, he suddenly sits on the bench.) 2 1 

CiNO {bending over him). What is it? 

Dante. Nothing. 

CiNO {to ^^^ Others). Nothing, so he says. 

Perhaps the battle had exhausted him. 

Curtain. 



ACT SECOND. 

Scene First : — A Room in the House of Dante. 
Against the hack wall, nearest the Right En- 
trance, is a table, on two sides of which are 
chairs. Other chairs and a sofa are in the 
Room. Entrances by doors at Right and Left. 
The windows are closed and the light not 
bright. 

The rising Curtain reveals Dante and Cino 
sitting at the table, Dante is listlessly look- 
ing away from the manuscript in front of him- 
self; and Cino is diligently examining another. 

Cino {looking toward Dante). 

Why, Dante, you have lost your interest? — 

Dante. I have. 

Cino. Your verse there is not new, of course. 
I got it from you months ago ^ ; but yet 
True poems hold the truth as gems the light, 
When rightly polished drawing to their depth 
All that is luminous in earth or heaven ; 
And thence reflect it not alone but flash it; 
And not till all light go, can lose their bril- 
liance. 

57 



58 DANTE. 

Dante. You give the reason — all my light is 
gone. 
You still write poetry? 

Cinq. Why, yes, and so 

Still need your criticism; ay, just now 
Have found a new task baffling me. 

Dante. In what? 

Cinq. A sister of a friend of mine has died, — 
A maiden of such beauty, grace, and love, 
It were impossible to think her dead, 
And not be drawn toward beauty, grace, and 

love 
In their diviner aspects. 

Dante. You should write 

Of her? 

CiNO. So have I thought; but what or how? — 
Perhaps you might suggest it. ^ 2 

Dante. Cino, Cino, 

I understand you. There are souls on earth 
With senses all so fine and penetrant 
That no thoughts in a kindred soul can lie 
So deeply hidden that they stand not naked. 
Not her you mean ; not you it is need help. 
You mean my own lost love. You mean my- 
self. 
You think that veins too heavy weighed with 
grief 



DANTE. 59 

May empty through their words as well as 

tears. 
I thank you, Cino. Let my tears flow 

first. 
Our sorrows are half lifted when the souls 
Of our true friends have come to bear them 

with us. 
Last night when darkness fell and veiled my 

face 23 

From those I surely thought it else had 

frighted, 
I walked the streets and watched the city 

dream. 
In lanes, in inns, in churches, and in homes 
Each face I gazed at loomed as grim with 

shadows 
As those that clung to mine. Her funeral 

pall 
Seemed hung as close about my form as hers, 
Flopping a dangling, dire, bedraggled fringe 
Of tear-soaked black between myself and all 

things. 
Cino. Think not she lies beneath it. Nay, she 

lives ; 
And lives where all may look for inspiration. 
Dante. The one sure proof of inspiration is 
That it inspires. I feel no inspiration. 



6o DANTE. 

CiNO. The air of heaven to-day is full of sun- 
shine. 
Shut in here do you feel it? No; none do 
But those who journey forth to do life's work. 
Their lot were yours, were you to follow them. 
Knocking at the Left Entrance. 
Dante and Cinq both rise. 
Enter — Left — Attendant. 

He hands Dante a Card. 
Dante. Excuse me, Cino. I must calm my- 
self— 
Will soon return. A man should not look 

grieved 
To greet a friendly visitor. 

Exit — Righ t — D ante. 

The Attendant opens the door at the Left 

Entrance. 

Enter — Left — Cavalcanti. 

Cino {to Cavalcanti). Good day. 

Exit — Left — Attendant. 
Cavalcanti {bowing to Cino). I have not seen 
him lately — never since 
The death of Beatrice — 
Cino. That seemed to quench 

All ardor in him for all work. 
Cavalcanti. I hope. 

But temporarily. A mind like his 



DANTE. 6l 

Glows like a spark upon a wintry hearth, — 
The brightest promise that the times afford. 

Cinq. Vitality as buoyant as his own 

Can hardly sink. Yet, whelmed in floods of 

grief, 
All men at times have need of helping hands. 

Cavalcanti. The hand that helps another most 
is his 
Whose own hand would find help. 

Cinq. Let him know 

The help that Florence needs. 

Cavalcanti. The loss he feels 

Is like the love it followed, less derived 
From outward traits discovered in another, 
Than inward temperament revealed in self. 
Can any outward substitute replace 
That which was all within? — But we can try it. 

CiNO. He comes, I see. 

Enter — Right — Dante. 
He exchanges hows with Cavalcanti. 

Cavalcanti. So sorry for you, friend. 

Dante. I find me in life's path, a traveler 
Whom accident has maimed, and would be left 
To die, did friends not come to rescue him. 

Cavalcanti. Ay, but they do come! 

Dante. Yes, I thank you, yes; 

And yet, what can they do for one? 



62 DANTE. 

CiNO. Perhaps 

Their outstretched hands may show that love 

is hidden 
Behind the mysteries that seem to cloak it. 

Dante. I thank you, Cino. 

Cinq. Dante, I believe, 

Though hard the drill that trains the soul to 

read it, 
That every message of the stars is written 
In letters one can learn to spell on earth. 

Dante. Oh, I can do but little now with letters ! 

Cavalcanti. It seems thus to you. 

Dante. Seems thus, Cavalcanti? — 

And what is life except the thing that seems? 
There was a time this round horizon rested 
About my spirit, as about my finger 
This ring of gold ; and in it gleamed a gem 
That centered all heaven's light, and flashed it 

forth. 
That gem is lost. With it my light is lost. 

Cavalcanti. I hope not, Dante. Florence yet 
is left. 

Dante. Alas for Florence! 

Cavalcanti. There are those who 

claim 
Her destined to receive the help of Rome ? 

Dante. How so? 



DANTE. 63 

Cavalcanti. What we are asking. No one 

knows. 
Cinq. A mystery yet! The Church has not 

revealed it. 
Cavalcanti. Too much a mystery ! When men 
distrust 
Their own thought or their thought's authority 
So they disguise it all in robes of office, 
Which only men are bid to honor, then 
I fear they hide what no man ought to honor. 
Cinq. You are a skeptic, Cavalcanti.^ 
Cavalcanti. Yes; 

As long as one thing in the world is wrong, 
Some skeptic should be here to think it so. 
Dante. Has no one tried to solve the mystery? 
Cavalcanti. To question mysteries guarded by 
the Church 
Does not provoke safe answers in our time. 
Dante. Can no one solve it but the Church? 
Cavalcanti. I fear 

Donati could ; and therefore say I fear. 
Enter — Left — Attendant with a card. 
Dante {taking the card and reading it). Why, 
even now, Donati visits me. 
Will you excuse me? 
Cavalcanti. Ay, but may the comer 

Be levied to bear tribute to our quest. 



64 DANTE. 

Dante. Will see you later. 
Cavalcanti. Yes, farewell. 

CiNO. Farewell. 

Exeunt — Right — Cavalcanti and Cino. 
The Attendant opens the door at the Left. 
Enter — Left — Donati, Simone, a Priest, 
Gemma, and an Elderly Chaperon. 
Exit — Left — Attendant. 
Donati {to Dante). When passing, though by 
accident, 
The loyal pause to honor royalty, 
So we to honor one whom we esteem. 
Dante. I thank you. You are welcome. 
{All exchange greetings.) 

Will you sit? 
{They how, hut they do not sit.) 
Donati {to Dante). We have not met you 

lately. 
Dante. No. 

Priest. You think, 

You poets, you are called to testify 
To what incites you from within, and so 
The less you take from outside life the better? 
Dante. At times, if aimed for better poetry. 
Priest. Oh, say not that! 
Dante. Why not? 

Priest. If it would grow, 



DANTE. 65 

A nature young as yours has need of health. 
The spirit's health is hope. Without it none 
Attain full manhood. Life is like a day. 
It wakes to longer work and larger wage, 
The brighter its beginning. 
Dante. Yes, I fear so. 

Priest. You fear so, eh? — and yet you do not 
fear 
Insulting nature when it comes to bless you 

{Pointing to the closed shutters) 
With window-blinds barred tight, as if the day 
Had brought not light but lances. 
Dante. Think I need it? 

Don ATI. At least, enough light from the outer 
world 
To see what now has come to Florence. 
Dante. What? 

Don ATI. The Holy Father's promise and protec- 
tion 
Against the Emperor, 
Dante. Is it true? 

Donati. It is. 

Priest. And that would bring the whole our 
city needs, — 
Not strength so much to fight the force without 
But spirit to unite the force within. 
Life grows here like a tree with outer branches 
5 



66 DANTE. 

Too broad for any handling, but with trunk 
So small and slender that a single hand 
Can fix its destiny for earth or heaven. 
The trunk of all that lives is in the spirit. 
But find the hand that can be laid on 

that, 
You find what brings to all things bloom or 
blight. 
Dante. You mean the Holy Father's? 
Priest. I mean his. 

With outer facts we merely fashion faction, 
In inner feeling we find fellowship. 
DoNATi. He speaks the truth. 
Dante. Ay, what a noon were that! 

There were no shade beside a thing on 

earth. 
If heaven's one sun were central over all. 
You think it could be done? — could end our 
factions? 
DoNATi. Why could it not? — not many men 
would band 
Against the Holy Father. 
Dante. And were you — 

Were you the source whence came this con- 
summation ? 
DoNATi. So men have said. 
Dante. And will you pardon me? 



DANTE. 67 

In thought, if not in word, my lack of know- 
ledge 
Had lacked the honor due you. 
Don ATI. You are frank. 

Priest. A mind with thought forever in the 
clouds 
May be excused for stumbling, now and then, 
At what, if seen through, might appear mere 
shadow. 
Gemma. One may excuse a bird, if, when it 
flies. 
It fails in seeing everything on earth. 2 4 
Dante. I beg your pardon, lady — for I fear 
To court with too much courtesy the truth 
That but to be truth bids us oft be curt — 
Some poet's eyes are keen as are their fellows! 
In searching through the pathways of the past, 
What guide men better in their task than 
poems? 
SiMONE. But how about the future? 
Dante. 'T is in them 

One reads the most of that which is to come. 
Simone. And in the present, too? 
Dante. In it, not that 

Which is but should be, is the poet's theme. 
And he who thinks it thinks the thought of 
God. 



68 DANTE. 

DoNATi. Come, come, we need not quarrel. 
Not how men 
Can fight the air with words, but how their 

frames 
Can back their words with deeds that free 

their air 
Of all that blocks right doing, this is that 
By which a man reveals his worth in life. 
And you will join with us, and with the 
Church? 
Dante. You may depend upon me. 
DoNATi. That I shall 

{aside to Simone). 
Now we shall have but half the Whites against 

us. 
{to Dante). I must be going to my offices. 
{to Gemma). You said, I think, that you 
go elsewhere? 
Gemma. Yes. 

DoNATi {to Dante). 'T is time we leave you. 
Dante {bidding good-bye to Donati, Simone, 
and Others). 
Thank you for your visit. 
Exeunt — Left — Donati, Simone, Priest, and 
Attendants. 
{to Gemma). 
They seemed in haste. 



DANTE. 69 

Gemma. Are bent on business. 

Dante. You know, I sometimes think that 
business 
Is like a cyclone, fills our ways with dust 
And bustle; yet men say it comes to clear 

them 
And bring us rest and comfort. Humph! — 
farewell. 
Gemma. So kind in you to help my uncle! 2 ^^ 
Dante. No; 

My heart belongs to Florence; only beats 
That she may live her life ; and he was kind 
In helping her ; and I have gratitude. 
Ay, he was right. For us one hope remains, — 
The Church. We both look forward to the 

Church, 

And, joined by it, our union will be perfect. 

Enter — Right — Cavalcanti and Attendants. 

They overhear the last sentence. 

Exeunt — Left — after exchanging farewells, Gemma 

and Chaperon. 
Dante {turning to Cavalcanti). 

Ah, back again? 
Cavalcanti. We are. 

Dante. Have news? 

Cavalcanti. We had. 

Dante. What was it? 



70 DANTE. 

Cavalcanti. Nay, like wise men, we 

are wary 
Of friends that follow those with hostile 
colors. 
Dante. I do not see — 
Cavalcanti. We saw and heard and 

know. 
Dante. Oh that was nothing ! 
Cavalcanti. Not for you, perhaps. 

But very much for us. 
Dante. Let me explain. 

Cavalcanti. You need not; nor excuse it. 
Temperament 
And taste, like flower and fragrance, go to- 
gether. 
What God hath joined let man not put 
asunder. 

Dante. But you 

Cavalcanti. Have found before that faniily 
reasons, 
At times, turn white to black. 
Dante. Are no such reasons. 

Cavalcanti. Mere words are wind; nor all 
their storm or stress 
Can pack the air so thought cannot see through 
it. 
Dante. You mean? 



DANTE. 71 

Cavalcanti. We overheard 

Dante. And think — 

Cavalcanti. And know. 

Dante. To know one needs to learn. How did 
you learn? — 
What steps were those that led up to your 
knowledge? 
Cavalcanti. When mortals climb a path to 
truth unseen, 
They feel their way along the links of logic. 
Dante. Aha! 

Cavalcanti. The notes just heard from you 
but echo 
The strains that all have heard you pipe for 
months. 
Dante. Why then have I myself not heard the 

echoes? 
Cavalcanti. I take you, Dante, for a man of 
honor. ^^ 
And after prying, pulling, plucking, plying. 
With such a maiden's heart, you would not 

fling 
The soiled thing back to her, face us, and 

claim 
You had been empty handed? ^^ 
Dante. Cavalcanti ! 

And you, of all men, knew the thing I meant. 



72 DANTE. 

Cavalcanti. The thing you said! — To God 
with what you meant! — 

One who has not His confidence must guess it. 
Dante. How did my spirit trip to fall so low 

In your esteem? 
Cavalcanti. We mortals are compounded 

Of sense below, and spirit resting on it. 

If sense give way, no wonder spirit falls. 
Dante. You deem me treacherous to the one 
above 

That so I love; and treacherous too to one^s 

That I do not love? — By your hope of heaven, 

In your deep heart, can you believe this of 
me? 
Cavalcanti. Why, think you, some men call 
me skeptical? — 

Because I say what I believe, not so? 
Dante. But do you think? — 
Cavalcanti. What else, pray, could 

one think? — 

You just took council with Donati. 
Dante. There! — 

Again your jealousy! He called on me, 

Not I on him. 
Cavalcanti. You knew his object? 
Dante. Yes — 

To end our factions for us here in Florence, — ■ 



DANTE. 73 

To place above us all the sovereignty 
Which only brings good will and peace on 
earth. 
Cavalcanti. And you have pledged yourself 
and followers 
To join Donati in enthroning this? 
Dante. I have. 
Cavalcanti. You fool. 
Dante. Take care. 

Cavalcanti. I say but truth. 

A man who fails to judge the character 
Of what is promised by the character 
Of him who promises, reveals no mind ; 
For mind is what connects effect and cause. 
You knew the baseness of Donati, yet 
Guessed not the baseness that was in his plan. 
Henceforward, though you know a bush be 

poison. 
Bid men come pluck and gorge its pretty ber- 
ries; 
And, if all die, expect no blame for it — 
You have but carried out the kind of thought 
With which heaven filled the kind of mind like 

yours. 
Surrender, would you, to the Holy Father? ^^ 
You know what that means? — All his troops 
come armed. 



74 DANTE. 

Their leader is the French prince, Charles 

of Valois. 
The Emperor, I tell you, is a very god 
Beside a devil of a man like Charles, — 
A treacherous, truthless, crafty, cruel brute; 
Who too comes pledged to slaughter or to 

banish 
Each man of us not in Donati's faction. 
Dante. Can this be true? 
Cavalcanti. It is. May heaven defend us ! 
The pull that lifts one by a rotting rope 
Is far less dangerous than the help that comes 
From foolish friends. 
Enter, suddenly — Left — Donati, Simone, Priest, 

and Attendants. 
Donati {noticing Cavalcanti and Attend- 
ants). 

Aha ! They would dissuade you ? 
Dante. There seems a difference of opinion 

here. 
Donati. I have your promise. 
Cavalcanti. And I fear a traitor. 

Donati {to Dante). And he has given you 

proof? 
Cavalcanti (to Donati). What need of proof? 
We best can judge of some things by their 
source, — 



DANTE. 75 

Of days by daylight, and of good by goodness. 
Heaven sends the one, and only heavenly 

traits 
Can bring the other. 
DoNATi {to Cavalcanti). Yours are heavenly 
traits? — 
He made a promise. Now you bid him break 
it? 
Cavalcanti. A promise made to suit a lie but 
cloaks 
Untruth that truth should strip and so show 
naked. 
DoNATi. Here stand my men ; and if his tongue 
prove false, 

{pointing toward Dante) 
Their blades know how to cut it loose from 
him. 
Cavalcanti. And here stand mine; and if he 
prove a traitor. 
Their blades know how to cut him loose from 
us. 
Don ATI {to Dante). Now choose between us, 

if you dare. 
Cavalcanti. Ay, choose! 
Dante. Have you considered that to which 
you dare me? 
To start right here a civil war in Florence? 



y6 DANTE, 

Kill off our bravest citizens, and open 
The doors of half our homes to lust and mur- 
der? 
And do you think that I could dare do that? 
You bid me choose between you. You forget 
There is another power upon the earth 
Far higher, stronger, than can be your own. 

(placing his hand on the Priest) 
I hide beneath the shelter of the church. 
I vow a pilgrimage to Rome ; and thus 

{turning to Donati) 
Fulfil my promise, 

{turning to Cavalcanti) 

and find out the truth 
f*rom him who knows it best, — the Holy 
Father. 2 7 

Curtain. 



Scene Second: — A Monk's Cell, dimly lighted by 
a single lamp, and connected by a door with a 
church, from which the sound of musical instru- 
ments and of singing can be heard. The cell is 
plainly furnished with three or four chairs or 
benches. In the Right Rear is an alcove in front 
of which hangs a Curtain. This can be opened 
fully, or only partly, revealing then a space, 
through which, at times, indicated in the text, a 
moving head and bust can be seen. 
Entrances, Right and Left, the latter into the 

church. 

Enter — Left — Dante and Cino, shutting the door 

and making the cell darker. 
Dante. My journey wrought no good. The 
Holy Father 
Kept me a prisoner there for months, you 

know, 27 
For fear my presence here should thwart his 

purpose ; — 
Was courteous, of course ; but Cavalcanti 
Was more than half-way warranted, I fear. 
77 



78 DANTE. 

In Church or State, the official seems the 
same, — 

A fist in front with which to threaten one ; 

A palm behind to beg him for a bribe. 
Cinq. Yet you yourself are prior of the city? 
Dante. And so have learned that when men 
give us votes, 

They lie in wait to have their gifts returned, — 

To wrest from us an undeserved reward. 

Or brand us ingrates whom all friends desert. 
CiNO. Oh, say not all! 
Dante. No, Cino, no; not all. ^^ 

Forgive me, Cino. Since we two were boys, 

The only love that I have felt returned, 

Has been my love for you. 
Cino. And yet they say 

The love of woman 

Dante. Could that satisfy 

And thrill with aught so true, unselfish, 
pure ? — 

I worship boyhood, thinking what we were. 
Cino. But what of Rome? 
Dante. If leading toward the wrong. 

Ought those who seek the right to follow her? 
Cino. Good children follow. 
Dante. Parents gone insane, 

Or but awry, are saved by opposition. 



DANTE. 79 

Love uniformed and forced in hatred's press- 
gang 
Is only served by those who war against it. 
Our thoughts of good should learn to separate 
The heavenly love from its foul earthly nest. 
To hold the latter' s dead impurity 
At one with spotless life that wings on high, 
Is often to deserve — I will not judge them. 
I would I could forget them. Do you know 
Some men there are have murder in their 

hearts 
Through all their lives; and if they murder 
not • 

Cinq. They may be rightly numbered with the 
saints. 
Not what our lower nature makes us feel, 
But what our higher nature lets us do, 
Determines what we are. 

Dante. I hope so, friend. 

At times my soul appears a stormy sea, 
All rage below and rain above; at times 
It seems the tears I shed have drained me dry. 
And left a void too deep for faith in God 
Or man to fill. 

CiNO For that I brought you here. 

Dante. And kindly meant, but yet we mortals 
find 



8o DANTE. 

That few things, when we turn them inside 

out, 
Are proved to be the miracles we thought 
them. 

Cinq. But you may see here for yourself. 

Dante. Oh no! 

The time to see the feathers on a wing 
Is not the while it flies; no, no; and not 
While playing sleight of hand to see the 
fingers. 

CiNO. But you can use your judgment. 

Dante. No, again! — 

No man who is no expert risks a judgment 
On questions experts only can decide, 
Without revealing his own lack of judgment. 

Cinq. At least, your mind is open. 

Dante. Yet to what? — 

All brains with limits are what polyps own 
You think? — Ours too fit forms whose grasp 

can never 
Outreach the touch of short tentacula. 
Your monk has credit here? 29 

Cinq. With some he has. 

They think that through him they have seen 
the Virgin. 

Dante. Humph! He is coming. 



DANTE, 8i 

Enter— Right— Monk. 

CiNO {to Monk). 

I have brought with me 

This gentleman — is prior of the city. 

Monk. You do me honor. 

CiNO. Would consult with you 

About the city 's welfare. 

Monk. I know not 

What may be granted. Sometimes at this 

hour, 

The while one hears the music in the church, 

I sink unconscious. Then, so am I told, 

Some higher power proclaims its presence 

through me. 

Music is heard from the church with the following 

words: 

The sky contains full half I see. 

In soil below I live, I love. 

High in the half that looms above. 
Oh, is there nothing there for me? 

During the music, the Monk points to the 
curtain. Cino and Dante draw it aside, 
and examine the walls and floors behind 
and beneath; then the Monk goes into 
the alcove and draws the curtain behind 
him. The words of the song are followed 
by a soft instrumental interlude. 



82 DANTE. 

Dante. Seems honest. 
CiNO. I have thought so. 

Dante. . Could one solve 

All motives and all means of mystery, 
There were no sphere for faith. 
CiNO. No. Sit you here. 

CiNO and Dante take seats at the Left, fac- 
ing the Curtain. Throughout the seance, 
Dante, now a-nd then, writes in his 
manuscript. 
Dante. And now you think the prior of the city 

May meet an actual Holy Father, eh? 
After the instrumental interlude the following is 
sung: 

The sky's bright sun and stars I see 
The soil below is guised in green 
In heaven whose orbs are robed in sheen, 

Oh, is there nothing there for me ? 

These words are followed by a soft instru- 
mental interlude. The curtain begins to 
move from side to side. Then it opens 
and a woman's form enrobed in a white 
gown appears. 

Cino. That seems a woman. 

Dante. But the monk was beardless. 

Cinq. Yet note how slim she is. 



DANTE. 83 

Dante. She may be, yes. 

Figure. Good evening, friends. 

Dante. A very good falsetto! 

The figure after making gestures disappears. 
CiNO. Well done, not so? 
Dante. Too well! 

CiNO. Could you explain it? 

Dante. Why no; not wholly. What of that? 
At times, 
That facts are facts is plain without explain- 
ing. 
To know things grow, we need not know their 

methods. 
To think things handiwork, we need not see 
The hand that does the work. What was she, 

think you? — 
And what her object? 
Cinq. Was a guide preparing 

The way for more. 
Dante. Conducting spirit, eh? 

After the instrumental interlude the following is 
sung: 

In thoughts within, sweet rest I see; 

In things without, but dust and toil. 

Where hang no veils of flesh and soil. 
Oh, is there nothing there for me? 



84 DANTE. 

These words are followed by a soft instrument- 
al interlude. The curtain opens, and 
a man's figure clothed in white appears. 
CiNO. Watch that now. 
Dante. Has a beard, and well 

put on. 
Figure. The world keeps rolling on from day to 
night. 
None always dwell where always glows the 

light. 
When darkness comes, and doubt assails the 

mind, 
Then light and faith come following swift be- 
hind. 

The figure disappears. 
Dante. Is optimistic. Yet the merest child 
Could recognize the monk there by his 

voice. 
And what was he ? 
CiNO. A guide. 

Dante. Another, eh?— 

And learned his lesson well. But when will 

those 
That need the guiding come? 
CiNO. Must wait and watch. 

After the instrumental interlude the following is 
sung: 



DANTE. 85 

In faith and hope and love I see 

Why earth sent home the Christ that came. 
When I go home, and own the same, 

Shall there be nothing there for me ? 

These words are followed by a soft instru- 
mental interlude. The curtain opens and 
a -figure of Beatrice clothed in white ap- 
pears. 
CiNO. Look there. I think your name was 

called too. 
Dante. Yes, — 

And shall I answer? 
CiNO. I would — go and see it. 

Dante {rising and approaching the curtain). 
Why, why, — what is it? — Cino, can you help 

me? 
Come here, please, come. 
Cino. Why, that is Beatrice.^° 

Dante. You see her? 
Cino. Yes. 

Dante. And it is not my fancy? 

Cino. Nay, question not yourself, but her — • 
less loud ! — 
She else may disappear. 
Dante {to the Figure). You come to me? 
Figure. And do you know me then? 
Dante. Are Beatrice? — • 



86 DANTE. 

You wear her form. — What woiild you have me 

do?— 
Figure. Do what you dreamt last night, and 

now design. 
Dante. And then, what then? 
Figure {disappearing). Then — we shall meet 

again. 
Dante. Wait, wait! {to Cinq) Why, call her 

back! 
CiNO. No, not to-day. 

You spoke too loud. Hear that? — The monk 

is waking. 
Dante. Why I — I had no chance to test its 

truth. 
Cino. And yet you saw her. 
Dante. Yes. 

Cino. And so did I. 

Dante. And if I come again here, can I see 

her? 
Enter — from behind the curtain — the Monk, 
Dante continues, addressing the Monk, 

What I have seen now, can I see again ? 
Monk. They tell me so. And did you get the 

thought 
To guide you in the conduct of the city? 
Dante. The conduct of? — Oh yes, you thought 

of that? 



DANTE, 87 

{to CiNO). 

But as I sat here, I had not that thought, 
But one sweet thought of her, and how to 

reach her; 
And what it was that filled the space between 

us; 
And how I could describe it! Did you hear 
The word she spake. She bade me tell my 

dream 
Of moving toward and meeting her. — But how 
Could she have known it! Could I but be- 
lieve 
She was a spirit sent here to inspire me ! 

{to Monk). 
And you will let me come again, and prove 
The truth of this? 
Monk. I will; yet now it seems 

That you believe it. 
Dante. With my heart I do. 

Mo N K. And sometimes hearts judge better than 

do heads. 
CiNO. Ay, sometimes things may be so beauti- 
ful, 
And fill the spirit with such holy thrills, 
To doubt their truth were kin to doubting God, 
When face to face with his own blazing pres- 
ence. 



88 DANTE. 

Monk. At least, all beauty changes what it 
brightens. 
A flower that blooms may merely fall to soil, 
But, when it does, the soil -to which it falls 
Is never quite the same it was before. 
Dante. Yet mind has methods that must be 
fulfilled. 
You say that I may come again. I thank you. 

{to CiNO). 

To save mine honor that men else had 

doubted, 18 25 3 1 
I had to marry ; yet I feared I wronged 
The memory of this other. Now, if true — 
Oh C!no, think! — She may forgive and guide 
me! 

Enter — Left — Attendant and Gemma. 

They open the door and leave it open, letting in 

muck more light. 

Sh — sh — my wife. 

{gesturing and speaking to hoik Cino and the 

Monk). 

No word of this to her! 
Gemma {Rowing to others and speaking to Dante). 
I came here to attend the funeral — ^ 2 
Signora Frescobaldi. Then I learned 
That you had crossed the cloister. You should 
know 



DANTE. 89 

The threatened danger. Whites and Blacks 

have come 
In crowds and companies, all frowns and 
threats. 
Dante. They surely have not brought their 

weapons? 
Gemma. Yes. 

Dante. Good God! — to treat His house as if 
a hot-house 
To nursery blood-red blades of hellish hate ! 
We should prevent this. 
Monk. I will keep them parted. 

{Holding up his cross.) 
Against the cross they will not dare to 
fight. 

Exit — Left — M on k. 
Dante. The city-guards should be informed at 
once. 
Here, take you this for me. 
{Writing on a manuscript and handing it to 
Attendant.) 
Exit — Right — Attendant. 
{A noise of conflict) . 
CiNO. Already fighting? 

He moves toward the door at the Left. 

Enter — Left — The Monk, evidently slain, home 

by Attendants. 



go DANTE. 

Dante {to Cino, as he himself kneels down to 
examine the Monk on the -floor). 
Killed him? killed him? — and I can learn no 

more ? — 
The gates of heaven that he could set ajar, 
And he alone, must now be closed again? 
Enter — Left — Cavalcanti and Donati, both 
respectively followed by Whites and 
Blacks. Dante rises a^id continues to 
them. 
Oh you accursed heathen! worse than those 
Who ignorantly crucified the Lord ! 
You knew his messenger, yet murdered 
him. 
Attendant of Cavalcanti. It was an accident. 
Dante. An accident! — 

Like that which follows from the rock that 

falls 
Where men who lie in wait have loosened it. 
An accident — oh yes! — that plots to arm 
The palsied, shaking, thought-void clutch of 

rage, 
And let it loose to raise a hellish storm 
Just where the good have come for heavenly 

calm! 
The lightning of your flashing blades fell not 
By accident. 



DANTE. 91 

Attendant of Cavalcanti. It was Donati's 
men 
That started it. 
Attendant of Donati. Nay, Cavalcanti' s. 
Dante. Nay, 

But both; and all whose orders brought these 

arms. 
When mortals are our hosts, the meanest 

men 
Will not insult them in their homes, but you 
Come here to God's house, all equipped to break 
His law of love, and kill his ministers. 
Why, one might almost visit hell to-day 
In safety, — so deserted by the fiends 
Called out to take possession here of you! 
{Some draw swords and some threaten him.) 
You threaten me?— Why not?— Just now in 

there 

{pointing toward the Left) 
Were threatening God!— And do I fear you? 

—No; 
I have no need. The men who dare do right 
Enlist with God, who guards— or guides them 

home. 
Enter— Right— A file of city guards. 
There is one certain way to end these troubles. 
I had my doubt before. The priors lack 



92 DANTE. 

One vote by which to banish both your lead- 
ers, — 
Yes, Cavalcanti and Donati, both. ^2 
Gemma, Nay, say not that! * 
Dante. I say that I shall give it; 

And clear my conscience, while I clear this air, 
And clean these foul and corpse-clogged lanes 

of Florence. 
Let this be done, her son's aspiring hope 
May picture outlines of her destiny 
In hues more bright and sweet than could be 

dreamed 
By any soul besmirched here and bestenched 
In blotches of your cursed Black and White. 

Curtain. 



ACT THIRD. 

Scene First: — Same as Act Second, Scene First. 
At the hack is a desk connected with a large 
table. In the desk are many manuscripts in 
confusion; and near it, on the floor, a waste 
basket. In the room are chairs and sofas. The 
rising curtain reveals Dante with pen in hand 
sitting before a manuscript on the desk, hum- 
ming and drumming with his fingers, as if 
marking off time to some rhythm. 
Entrances — Right and Left. 

Enter — Right — Gemma. 

Gemma (^o Dante). What are you doing? 

Dante. Writing. 

Gemma. Always writing. 

Dante. That is my mission. 

Gemma. Not your business. 

Dante. They differ? 

Gemma. Yes. One's mission, as a rule, 

Is wrought alone; one's business with others. 
Things done alone may but be done for self. 
Things done with others may be done, too, for 
them. 

93 



94 DANTE. 

Dante. True missions only serve the higher 

self. 
Gemma. Some people always think their own 
selves higher 
Than are the selves of those about them. 
Dante. Oh! — 

You knew me as a poet when we married. 
Gemma. I knew you as a boy, too; and I 
thought 
That when you grew you would become a 

man. 
There was a time my uncle thought so, too. 
He pictured you a hero and a leader. 
Now none dare claim you as a follower. 
Dante. None dare? 

Gemma. Who dares to have a follower 

That stabs him in the back, as you have 

stabbed 
Donati and your great friend, Cavalcanti? 
Dante. You know I try to follow what is right. 
Gemma. And never find the right save in your- 
self; 
And, if you did, your endless cant and chatter 
Knagged out like warnings from a rattler's 

tail 
Would worry off your faction's foes before 
You harmed them. 



DANTE. 95 

Dante. So you think me wrong? 

Gemma. As all do. 

Who vote you prior now? They tax your all 
Like some plebeian. When you wish to work, 
None care to wager wages on your doing. 

Dante. And my own household also turn 
against me? 

Gemma. Besides descending to your disesteem, 
Your wife should hanker, eh, and hunger too 
To starve with you! 33 

{Snatches and tears up the mamiscript he is 
writing.) 

Dante {trying, at first, to save his manuscript). 
And why do you do that? 

Gemma. To wake you up. 

Dante. One who writes out his dream 

Must be 5,wake already. 

Gemma. I would make 

You realize it, so I tear it up. 

Dante. One dream was torn up long ago, I fear. 
Why, Gemma, when I married you I judged 
Your spirit by the beauty of its body ; 
And that seemed so at one with what I fan- 
cied 
I could not doubt that it would prove at one — 
Could we but know each other, through and 
through — 



96 DANTE, 

With all my soul that had conceived the 
fancy. 
Gemma. 'T was not the first time life has proved 
that poets 
Are fools who judge their fancies to be facts. 
Dante. At times, my faith still thinks they 
may be facts. 
Our fancies are the children of the soul, 
With rights of heritage as true as those 
• Of any other form of thought. If so, 
Then their relationship may be as true — 
Though how we never now can under- 
stand — 
To that which mortals term reality. 
Gemma. Past hope ! Still prating of the soul ! — 
as if 
A man could take it out and measure it ! 
Dante. The stature of the soul is measured by 

The distance of its outgrowth over earth. 
Gemma. The outgrowth, eh? — explains your 
misfit, does it? — 
Oh yes! — you have outgrown your low sur- 
roundings? 
Dante. Why misinterpret me ? I may not fit 
The world I live in. Did the Christ fit his? 
Could any man walk straight in paths of 
earth, 



DANTE. 97 

Nor trespass on some crooked paths of others ? 
Enter — Left — Attendant, and behind him Ding. 

Exit — Left — Attendant. 
Gemma and Dante, Good day. 
Ding. Good day. 

Dante. And is 

there any news? 
Ding. There is, and bad. I thought I ought to 

warn you. 
Dante. How so? 
Ding. Donati is returning soon 

With Charles of Valois, and the French to back 
him. 
Dante. The Whites will not be able to protect 

us? 
Ding. The Whites have lost their leader, 
Dante. Cavalcanti 

Can be recalled now, if Donati come. 
Ding. No, no; not he; he is beyond recall. 
Dante. What mean you? 
Ding. He was banished by the priors 

To Sarzana. — It is the home of fevers.'^^ 

They welcomed him too warmly. He is gone. 
Dante. I never knew of fever raging there. 
Gemma. As many go astray through ignorance 

As through wrong-doing. I would rather have 

Keen knaves look out for me than stupid saints. 



98 DANTE. 

Dante. You speak like that to me, and now? 

Oh God! 
When all my soul sinks downward with the 

weight 
Of that dead body of my friend? — no pity? 
You know there was but one right thing to do. 
I could not let the good of this rash friend 
Outweigh the safety of the whole of Florence. 
Gemma. And yet be sure the whole of Florence 

feels 
Less gratitude for you than grief for him. 

His friends, at least 

Dante. I see ; and I who tried 

To meet out equal justice to a hoard 
In Church and State, all squirming here like 

worms 
To tomb their mates in dirt and mount upon 

them, 
Priests cursing people, people cheating priests, 
Whites boasting of white shrouds they trail 

behind them. 
Blacks of black funeral palls that follow them, 
And every one of them too mean to own 
One other man the equal of himself, — 
I stand the enemy of all. Oh God ! — 
Some spirits here may seek thy higher life, 
And help their fellows. It is not for me. 



DANTE. 99 

Would I mount up, I find no wings for it, 
I fall. 
Enter — Left — Attendant and Cino. 
All exchange greetings. 
Exit — Left — Attendant. 
(Dante continues to Cino). 
And you, too, come to bring bad tidings? 
Cino. I bring this proclamation. It concerns 
you. 

{Handing a paper to Dante.) 
Dante {taking the paper and looking at it) . 
Who wrote it, and who sent it, and from 
where? 
Cino. It comes here from Donati and Prince 
Charles. 
They march against the city. 
Dante. But the Whites. 

Cino. We have no leader, and the most are fly- 
ing. 
Dante. What says the proclamation? 
Cino. It names you, 

And four besides you, summoned to appear ^^ 
And answer for extortion and rebellion 
Against the Pope and Charles. 
Dante. Extortion? What? — 

For raising pence to keep the city's peace? — 



lOO DANTE. 

Rebellion, towards the city's enemies? 
Who charges that? 
CiNO. It says here, "common fame." 

Dante. What threatens those who fail to heed 

the summons? 
CiNO. Their property shall all be confiscated, 
Themselves be banished, and, if caught in 

Florence, 
Be burned alive. 
Dante. If I obey the summons 

And speak the truth, they will obtain their 

wish; 
I shall be caught in Florence. 
CiNO. You should leave. 

Dante. Too true! but, first — you are a lawyer, 
Dino — 
Draw up a paper, making over all 
My property to Gemma. 

(Ding sits at the desk and writes.) 
CiNO {taking Dante to extreme Left). Why 
not deed 
The property to some one else in trust ? 
Dante. Not safe! If held as mine it might be 
doomed. 
Donati's niece could keep it for herself. 
Cinq. She might not deed it back. 
Dante. She would not take it 



DANTE. loi 

From her own children; and, you know, be- 
sides, 
We men who wed incur a debt of honor. 
Cinq. But should that let one harm himself? 
Dante. Why, honor 

Is in oneself, and so does not depend 
On anything another is or does. 
{to DiNO). 

The paper will be ready soon, not so? 
I must prepare me, and will then return. 
Exit — Right — Dante. 
Gemma {to Dino). You must be sure to make 

all clear and certain. 
CiNO {to Gemma). What will you do without 

him? 
Gemma. Humph! — not penance! 

We do that only to the ones we worship. 
Cinq. So women do not worship those they 

marry. 
Gemma. Not after they have married them. 
Cino. Why not? 

Gemma. They get too near them. 
Cino. Humph! but that depends 

On what one means. They can not get too 

near 
To any one in spirit. 
Gemma. What is that? 



I02 DANTE. 

CiNO. That in us which has least of body in 

it; 
And yet, like fire, may glow when bodies 

meet, 
And make one's whole life luminous. 
Gemma {looking at him disparagingly). A poet! 
Cinq. Yes; making poetry is practising 
The language of the spirit. I should like 
To learn to speak it altogether. 
Gemma. Should you? — - 

That wish is what sends Dante now from Flor- 
ence. 
Cinq. That wish is what sends Dante now from 
Florence ; 
I shall remember. May I quote you to 
him? 
Gemma. 'T will be so kind of you, reminding 
him 
Of me! 

Enter — Right — Dante. 
Dante {to Dino). The writing ready? 
DiNO {rising and handing the paper to him). 

Brief but clear. 
Dante {reading it). 
I see — will sign it. {to CiNO and Dino). 

Will you witness for me? 
Dante, Cino, and Dino sign. 



DANTE. 103 

Dante {handing paper to Gemma). 

There, Gemma, well nigh all I had is yours. 
You show it to your uncle. He will guard 
you. 

{Knocking outside.) 
CiNO {looking through the window hacking at 
the Left) . 
They seem Donati's men {to Dante). They 
come to fetch you. 

Dante {turning toward the door). I 

Cinq. No, you must not. {Pointing to the 
Right). 

Leave the other way, 
And jump the garden fence there — in the 
rear. 
Ding. And yet the streets are full of them. 
Cinq. Wait, wait! 

{removing his own hood and cloak). 
All know your hood and cloak. Take mine. 

None think 
Enough of these to stop and question them. 
Dante. First let me show myself; and make 
them sure 
That I am here. 
{thrusting his head from the window) . 

What is that you want? 
Voice. Yourself. 



I04 DANTE. 

Dante. The house is not in order. Wait. 

The madam must get ready to receive you. 
{to Cinq and Dino, as he puts on Cinq's 
cloak and hood, after removing his own) . 
I thank you for your kindness, gentlemen. 

{shaking hands with them) . 
A last word to my children ; then I go. 
DiNO. Where shall we find you. 
Daxte. At Verona soon — 

Will send a messenger. 

Exit — Right — Dante and Gemma. 
{Knocking outside.) 
Voice Outside. You keep us waiting. 
CiNO {putting on Dante's hood and cloak). 

They all will deem me Dante. Note how well 
I imitate his voice. 
DiNO. Is danger! 

Cinq {thrusting his head out of the window). 

Wait; 

Wait till the madam — gets 

Voice Outside. It was not her, 

But you we want. 
CiNO. I know ; but please be patient. 
(CiNO draws in his head.) 
Enter — Right — Gemma. 
Ding {to Gemma). Has left? 
Gemma. Will soon — 



DANTE. 105 

CiNO {looking about the room) . How is it with 
his writing? 
Should they discover aught — 
Gemma moves towards Dante's desk, Cino fol- 
lows and continues. 

The speaking voice 
Is like a church bell, mainly rung for service ; 
But writing made for sight is like a belfry, 
And draws attention to one's need of service. 
Gemma {pulling one from other disordered man- 
uscripts, on the desk and tearing it, and then 
throwing the parts into a waste-basket). 
Not much here, — only poems! 
Cino. Yes, but they- 

Gemma {thrusting her hand apparently against 
a pen that pricks it) . 
One could not get a pen — I mean a penny 
For all of them. I wish his notes could store 
As much of point and sharpness, after — say — 
His pen has left them, as they seem to, now. 
(Cino and Ding exchange looks as if not relish- 
ing the remark.) 
Loud knocking at the door. 
(Gemma indicates that there is nothing more in the 

desk.) 
Cino. Now when they come, we all should bide 
by this, — 



io6 DANTE. 

That it was I who wore this hood of Dante — 
To keep the chill off; and {to Gemma) are 

both your friends, 
Who sped to tell you of Donati's coming. 
We thus give Dante time. 
Ding. Has need of time, 

Or else will quickly get eternity. 
Shall let them in now, eh? 

{moving toward the Left). 
Cinq. Ay, ay; but lend 

Your eye to me, and arm too, if they press me. 
DiNO opens the door at the Left, then apparently 

opens another beyond it. 
Enter — Left — Simone and many Attendants. 
They look around them, then besiege Cino, 
who is at the Right. Cinq draws his 
sword, as do several of the Attendants. 
After some fencing, Cino throws aside 
his hood and cloak. 
Cino. A hood may hide a woman. This does 
not. 
Now, man to man! 
SiMONE. Hold on! You are not Dante. 

Cino. I never claimed to be. 
SiMONE. You acted him. 

Attendant (brandishing his sword). 

His false hood fits the falseness of his head. 



I 



DANTE. 107 

CiNO. If Dante's hood be covering my head, 
It does not cover all his head contained. 

Attendant. It makes you take his place. 

Cinq. What, I? 

SiMONE. Yes, you! — 

What else have you his cloak for? 

Cino. It was cold. 

I came here to Donati's niece, — to tell her 
Donati had returned, and then I felt 
A chill assail my back. This cloak has killed 

it. 
Is killing chills a crime you kill a man for? 

SiMONE. But where is Dante? 

Cino. How should I know that? 

SiMONE. He just was at the window here. 

Cino. Why I— 

'T was I talked there. 

SiMONE. Pretending to be Dante! 

CiNO. Pretending? — Now by all that makes me 
human 
Am I to blame that you have human nature ? 
You work yourselves up to a fever, see 
The image of your own imagination. 
Then swear 't was I caused your delirium! 

SiMONE. Humph! Leave him. Search the 
house. 

Exeunt — Right — Ding and Cino. 



io8 DANTE. 

Gemma {confronting an Attendant, as he turns 
from CiNo). Nay, you forget 

I am Donati's niece. 
Attendant. And what of that? 

This house is Dante's. You are Dante's 
wife. 
SiMONE. He flies all colors and he follows 
none. 
So where they fly we all are sure to track 
A turncoat treacherous to every hue. 
Aha, he dreamed of ending factions here : 
He did it ! — All unite in fighting him. 
Exit — Right — Simone and Others. 
Those remaining break windows and furniture. 

Enter — Left — Donati. 
Gemma {to Donati). What mean these crea- 
tures here creating chaos 
In this, my house? 
Donati. It is the house of Dante. 
Gemma {showing him the deed given her by 

Dante). It is mine. 
Donati {looking at the deed) . Aha ! This makes 
a difference. 

{to the soldiers.) Hold, hold. 
Enter — Right — Simone. 
Simone. The house has been searched through. 
Donati. No Dante? 



DANTE. 109 

SiMONE. No. 

Do NAT I. Withdraw, and set a double guard out- 
side. 

{to Gemma.) 
They wrecked things badly. Is there more of 
it? 
Gemma. I have not seen. 

Don ATI. Shall I go with you? 

Enter — Right — Cino and Dino. 

Who 
Are these? 
Gemma. Some friends of mine. They just had 
come 
To tell me they had heard of your return. 
DoNATi. Humph, humph! (^oSimone). You 
give them passage. 
Exeunt — Left — Simone and Attendants. 
Ding {to Donati). If you please. 

We first would find our cloaks and hoods. 
Donati. Of course. 

Exeunt — Right — Donati and Gemma. 
Dino {to Cino, collecting carefully, as he speaks, 
the parts of the torn manuscript in the 
wastebasket, and concealing them under his 
cloak.) 

This world contains two kinds of people, 
Cino, — 



no DANTE. 

The kind who see the whole thing in its parts, 
And those who see the parts, and not the 
whole. 2^ 

Curtain. 



Scene Second: — A Large Room in the Cas- 
tle of the Marquis of Malaspina in Lunigiana. 
Backing, at the Center, are Ctir tains that can be 
drawn aside. Near the Curtains at the Left is 
a Writing Desk in which are manuscripts be- 
longing to Dante. Entrances through the Cur- 
tains at Back, and also at the Right and the Left. 
Enter — Right — Dante. 
Enter — Left — C in o . 
Dante {taking Cino's hands in his). Why, 

why ! — Thank God to see you once again ! 
CiNO. I, too, thank God. How are you? 
Dante. Well enough 

In body. 
Cinq. I am pleased to find you here 

In such environment, — so beautiful! 
Dante. Earth might have more of beauty, had 
it had 
More continence ; nor spent, and spawned such 

crowds 
Between ourselves and nature. As it is. 
What tempt our taste appear too often served 
Like viands one can scarcely see for flies, 
111 



112 DANTE. 

Or test for spice and pepper. Well, what news 
From Florence? 
CiNO. Could one call that news which but 
Repeats the same old story? — brawls and mur- 
ders? — 
I had to fly myself.^^ 
Dante. So had I heard. 

But, thank the Lord, it soon will end now. 
Cinq. Will? 

Dante. One time I trusted Rome — in vain. 
At last, 
Comes Henry of Luxemburg, the Emperor.^^ 
Oh doubt, him not, a man of strength, have 
seen him. 
CiNO. Beneath your cloak you seem to wear — 
not so? — 
A soldier's uniform? 
Dante. I have enlisted, 

And join him. You come too — our very man ! 
CiNO. All thought you firm of faith in the re- 
public? 
Dante. I am. No tyrant ever triumphed yet 
But first came cowards cringing to be trod on. 
Yet something more is true. Strong self- 
control 
Has never yet forsaken man or clan 
Where did not enter the control of others. 



DANTE. 113 

Which others is the one sole question now 
For half demented Florence. Let a grip 
So firm that all should feel it, rein and curb 
And guide by reason her untamed disorder, 
Think what our people, letters, art, might do. — 
Why, all the world of thought would focus 

there, 
And all enlightenment find there their sun ! 
CiNO. And you have waived the student for the 

soldier? 
Dante. I tell you, friend, say what you may 
of thought, 
Man's brawn was given him as well as brain. 
And there are things to tramp for, things to 

clutch, 
And days for doing. They are brighter, too, 
At times, than nights for dreaming. 
Cinq. You forsake 

The path of poetry? 
Dante. Why no ; not that ; 

Not wholly that ! I mean a man should wield 
And welcome, too, the whole that nature gives 

him. 
The fist is fashioned for the use of God 
In just as true a sense as is the finger, — 
What grasps a sword as that which guides a 
pen. 

8 



114 DANTE. 

Enter — Right — Atte n d ant. 
Dante {continues to Attendant). 

And are they ready? • 
Attendant. Nay, they will not go. 

Dante. Not go? — and wherefore not? 
Attendant. Had you not heard? 

Dante. Heard what? 

Attendant. About the Emperor? — was ill. 

Dante. Oh, yes; but only slightly — could re- 
ceive us. 
Attendant. Nay, nay; — is very ill. 
Dante. You cannot mean — 

Impossible! — that he is dead? 
Attendant. He is. 

Dante {to Cino). Now heaven defend! It 

must not, can not be. 
Attendant. And there has come a rumor with 

it too. 
Dante. What is it? — From your mien I should 
infer 
It matters to myself. 
Attendant. If you bide longer 

Within this castle, there come hints of 

war. 
A patron who should shield the Emperor's 

friend 
Would seem to be the foe of Italy. 



DANTE, 115 

Dante. Ah, so! — I must have time to think — 
I thank you. 

Exit — Right — Attendant. 
(Dante continues to Cino.) 
Oh Cino, Cino, did one ever dream 
A fate like mine ? — a civic leper, Cino ! — 
Turned out of his own home because a pest ; 
And then declared a pest to every home 
That still would welcome him. This final 

blow. 
It snaps the only staff remaining now 
From which my soul could wave a single sig- 
nal. 
Worse off am I, than were a soldier slain, 
Ay, than a traveler in a tiger's den. 
If but these limbs were plucked out, one by 

one, 
I were not doomed to live on then alone, 
An alien to all comrades, conscious ever 
That to oppose the currents coursing round 
Were vain as efforts of mere spurting spray 
To still a surging ocean. Oh, my God! — 
To live, yet be too frail to do the work 
That makes a life worth living! 
Cino. I have heard 

You might go back to Florence. 
Dante. How is that? — 



Il6 DANTE. 

Go back to Florence? — what? — and see those 

hills, 
My home, my children, friends, and have a 

voice, 
And be again a man with countrymen! — 
Ah, say not that, — not if it be not true! 
The brute-despair my soul has housed so long 
Is trained to bear hard blows, and beat them 

back; 
But this frail trembling babe of hope, just 

born. 
Oh it were cruel murder, maiming it! 
Enter — Left — Attendant. 
Attendant {to Dante). Some gentlemen with- 
out are waiting for you. 
Cinq. They now may bring the hope I men- 
tioned. 
Dante. Yes. 

He bows to the Attendant. 
Exit — Left — Attendant. 
Cinq {to Dante). Shall I retire? 
Dante {gesturing toward the Right Entrance). 
'T were well. If seen with me, 
My shadow might shed blackness on yourself. 
Cino. The blackest shadows fall from brightest 
forms. 

Exit — Right — C INO- 



DANTE. 117 

Enter — Left — Attendant, Simone, and Other 

Delegates. 

All exchange hows. 

Dante {to those entering). You come from 

Florence, gentlemen? 
Simone. We do; 

And from your friends there. 
Dante. Have I friends there? — Thank you, 
Simone. And they have thought it better for 
our peace, 
And for the peace of other cities near us, 
To end this feud between ourselves and you. 
Dante. And I return? — What then are their 

conditions? ^^ 
Simone. Confession, and repentance, and your 
fines. 
The stigma of oblation, and a robe 
Of penitence worn round the city. 
Dante. Humph! — • 

A fool's cap, too, like that which I am told 
Was worn by Lippus Lapi Ciolo? — ^^ 
And what about my wife? — would like to 

watch 
Her Dante decorate a scene like that? 
Simone. She is Donati's niece. 
Dante. If I return, 

I come as husband of Donati's niece? 



Il8 DANTE. 

And follower of his family and faction? — 

Present my compliments, bid all have patience. 

Not far away, a place is waiting those 

Who wish to damn a soul for doing right, 

In which that sort of thing is done much better. 
SiMONE. But — 

Dante. No; there is no but. God gives each 
man 

One life where kindle feeling, thought, and 
will ; — 

And bids him hold it like a torch on high 

To light himself and others. Do you claim 

That he should lower it ? 
SiMONE. Why, in form, perhaps; 

And forms of different shape hold torches. 
Dante. None 

Can ever plunge the torch beneath earth's mire 

And keep it burning. Yield in form you 
say? — 

In form our frames but vehicle the soul ; 

Yet by its vehicle the world will rate it. 

When comes the splendor of a monarch's 
march 

Men cheer his chariot, not his character. 

Should I let mine trail, broken, bruised, be- 
mired, 

The world would hiss both car and occupant. 



DANTE. 119 

Enter — Right — Attendant. 

Dante pauses and bows to Attendant. 

Attendant. The Marquis comes. Perhaps 

you would receive him. 
Dante. Yes. (to Delegates.) Pardon me. 

Exit — Right — Dante and Attendant. 
SiMONE. A game-cock crowing yet, eh? 

But when they drive him from his present 

dunghill, 
He scarce will clap his wings with such a 

whur. 
No further need deceiving him, I take it ! 
None here will now oppose our seizing 
l.im. 
(pointing to the writing desk, toward which sev- 
eral Delegates move.) 
But first the desk, in it to find the list 
Of Florence traitors, banded to uphold 
The Emperor. Come their owner back, pro- 
voke him, 
And thus invoke the fiend in him to furnish 
Excuses to offset the fiend in us. 
Enter — Right — Dante. 
Dante {seeing the Delegates handling his pa- 
pers). What mean you? 
SiMONE. We are gathering information. 

A man so learned should encourage us. 



I20 DANTE. 

Dante. I thought that you were gentlemen 

from Florence. 
SiMONE. Yes, dealing with a traitor from Ve- 
rona. 
Dante. Put back those papers. 
SiMONE. When we strip your corpse, 

And make your suit a sack to pack them in. 

Dante {drawing his sword). It will be wet 

and heavy when you do, 

And fewer of you left to carry it. 

(Delegates draw swords.) 

Enter — Right — the Marquis with Attendants 

and Cinq. 
Marquis. Wait ! — What is this ? — You think we 
dwell in Florence? 
Or fail to furnish guests with knives to 

carve 
What leaves our larder? — You, forsooth, must 

ply 
Your own blades in each others' carcasses? 
Dante. They seized my papers, and would 

seize my person. 
Marquis {to Simone and Others). Return 
the papers, and return your persons 
To your own city. 
SiMONE. Pardon, we were told 

This traitor would no longer be your guest. 



DANTE. 121 

Marquis. He is my guest, while here. I say 
farewell. 

{He bows to SiMONE and Delegates, 
toward whom some of the Attendants 
of the Marquis move.) 
Exeunt — Left — Simone and Delegates, fol- 
lowed by some of the Attendants. 
Dante {to Marquis). No guest should be a 

pest and peril to you. 
Marquis. Nor I to him. Till you decide to 
leave us, 
You shall not lack protection. 
Dante. After that, 

My soul will lack what more I need, — a friend. 
Marquis. I wish to speak to you of that — • 
but later. 
Exeunt — Right — Marquis and Attendants. 
Cinq {to Dante). Where shall you go? 
Dante. Oh, high 

up in the Alps, 
Too high for anyone to follow me. 
CiNO. To be too high for that, you need no 

Alps. 
Dante. Your phrase is kindly meant, my Cino, 
yet 
Conceive how barren, cold, and colorless 
Is life upon the heights. 



122 DANTE. 

CiNO. Conceive, as well, 

How far, and broad, and varied, and sublime 
Are earth and heaven when these are seen from 

them. 
Souls oft are driven from our lower life 
That thus they may explore for us the higher. 
Dante. You mean that when a man is bound, 

feet, limbs, 
Trunk, head, he has no weapon left him save 
His voice. How well that I have kept these 

notes here! 

{gesturing toward his desk). 
The slowest lines of thought are like the light- 
ning's 
In this, — they never track the same trail twice. 
Had these been lost, they had been lost forever. 
CiNO. Your pardon, friend ; nor deem it strange 

in me 
That, when we met, my spirit's agitation 
So wrenched the links of memory that they 

failed 
To hold together that which chiefly joined 
My journey hither and my thought of you. 

{taking the objects mentioned from his 
pocket and presenting them to Dante.) 
This miniature, Giotto's Beatrice, 
His work and gift. 



DANTE, 123 

Dante {taking it from Cino). 

Oh, Cino, thank you, thank you. 
How kind of him to send it! 
Cino {taking manuscripts from his pocket). 

These were rescued 

By Dino Frescobaldi from your home 

What time the mob made havoc of all else.^^ 

Dante {taking and examining the manuscripts.) 

Why, Cino, do you know what you have 

done? 
That day, when, as you thought, my love ap- 
peared, 
She bade me write of what I just had dreamt. 
While fresh in mind I sketched it, hued by all 
The glory of imagination's dawn. ^ 
'T is here; nor since I lost it, head or heart 
Has ventured to supply a substitute. 
Yet, void of it, the path of thought I trod 
Seemed like a day's where comes no sun. But 
now — 
Cino. Can mount, and, though none follow, 
make all hear 
Your voice come crying from the wilderness. ^^ 
You know, in ancient times, it was the poets, 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea, 
Revealed the truth. The priests could but 
repeat it. 



124 DANTE. 

Dante. And now ours need their repertoire re- 
newed? 
CiNO. They do ; nor doubt that poets can renew 
it. 

Though no new message may inspire them, in- 
sight 

May often read through oldest form new mean- 
ing. 
Dante. Ay, less the lack of truth makes mor- 
tals fools 

Than lack in thinking of the truth they have. 

One thing, at least, my Cino, life has taught 
me, — 

That reason's God must be a God of reason. 

If so, there lives no right but reason fashions; 

Nor is there aught that should seem right to 
man 

If it seem wrong to his own reasoning. 

So those who know they own an under- 
standing, 

And know how all things earthly join to train 
it, 

Yet think of God as all misunderstood, 

Must think with minds whose methods are 
not wise. 

Pray heaven that we too join not in their 
error. 



DANTE. 125 

I oft have asked, my Cino, why it is 

That all the world should hurl at one like me, 

From state and church and home, what harms 

my life 
Well nigh beyond what slew the martyr 

Stephen? — 
Why must one live all buried save his voice ? — ■ 
For nothing? — Nay; the paths of Providence 
Were never plotted yet without some plan. 
If God be one, his realm has unity; 
And that quick blade of death, which cleaves 

the reins 
And splits the wheels with which we race 

through life. 
Is but a mystic wand beyond whose touch 
A hidden life speeds on to reach the bar 
Of everlasting justice. ^^ Where that waits 
What need to prove? one merely needs to 

show. 
From what life now is, what life shall become. 
So I would do ; and warn men not to take 
Mere earth and sky for that one priceless 

jewel, 
The soul, that they encase. With care for it, 
The men who keep their spirits clean and clear 
From touch or taint of selfishness or vice, 
May oft behold in depths of inner life 



126 DANTE. 

Which nearest lie to nature's inner life, 
The image and the presence that reveal 
The power and purposes that are divine. 
Enter — Le]t — Attendant. 
{He hows to Dante, who returns the how.) 
Attendant {gesturing toward Cinq). 

A stranger here would see the gentleman. 
Exit — Left — Attendant. 
Cinq. Then "Au revoir, " my Dante. Do you 
know, 
Your words recall what once our aged tutor, 
Latini, taught us? 
Dante. What was that? 

Cinq. Why, this, — 

A poet like a poem is a product. 
Exit — Left — after shaking hands with Dante, 
Cinq. 
Dante looks toward Cinq, as he leaves; then, 
taking from his pocket, where he has 
placed them, the miniature of Beatrice, 
and also the manuscripts hrought him, 
and holding them in his hands, and gaz- 
ing at them fondly, he walks slowly to- 
ward the Ciirtains at the rear. He 
disappears hehind them. A moment 
later, they separate, revealing the Closing 
Tableau. 



DANTE. 127 

CLOSING TABLEAU. 

The Piazza di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. 
Backing is the Church of Santa Croce. In 
front of it, on its Pedestal, is the great Statue 
of Dante as it now stands. If thought best, 
Beatrice and Others may he grouped below 



it. 



Curtain. 
End of the Drama. 



NOTES UPON DANTE 

1 "When first the glorious lady of my mind was made 
manifest to mine eyes, even she who was called Beatrice, 
. . . she appeared to me at the beginning of her 
ninth year almost, and I saw her almost at the end of 
my ninth year. Her dress on that day was of a most 
noble color, a subdued and goodly crimson, girded and 
adorned in such a sort as best suited with her very 
tender age. At that moment, I say most truly that the 
spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest 
chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that 
the least pulses of my body shook therewith. . . . 
In my boyhood I often went in search of her, and found 
her so noble and praiseworthy that certainly of her 
might have been said those words of the poet Homer, 



128 DANTE. 

• she seemed to me the daughter not of a mortal man but 
of God.'" — Dante's La VitaNuova, pp. 23, 24, 26, from 
the translation, as are all other of the following quotations 
from the same, of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 

2 "To the Florentine poets of this new school belonged 
. . . Dino Frescobaldi. . . . But the great- 
est of them are Guido Cavalcanti, Cino de' Sinibuldi da 
Pistoja, and, in his youthful poems, Dante himself." — 
Fedem's Dante and His Time, p. 132. 

3 "After the lapse of so many days that nine years 
exactly were completed since the above written appear- 
ance of this most gracious being, on the last of those 
days it happened that the same wonderful lady ap- 
peared to me dressed all in pure white between two 
gentle ladies, . . . She turned her eyes thither where 
I stood sorely abashed. . . . She saluted me with 
so virtuous a bearing that I seemed then and there to 
behold the very limits of blessedness. The hour of her 
most sweet salutation was exactly the ninth of that day ; 
and because it was the first time that any words from 
her reached mine ears, I came into such sweetness that 
I parted thence as one intoxicated." — La Vita Nuova, 
p. 27. 

* "Of the poems contained in the book (La Vita 
Nuova) the first, as Dante himself informs us, was com- 
posed in his eighteenth year. . . . According to 
the custom of his time, he sent it to several poets, who 
answered it. Some of these answers are extant. 
Among them is a sonnet by Guido Cavalcanti." — 
Federn's Dante and his Time, pp. 204, 205. 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 129 

5" It is interesting to read in Dino's book, who equally- 
belonged to the White party, by what reasons, accord- 
ing to his opinion, influential Florentines had been de- 
cided to follow either party. Guido Cavalcanti had 
done so 'because he was a personal enemy of Corso 
Donati.'" — Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 172. 

6" As I sat alone, I betook myself to draw the resem- 
blance of an angel upon certain tablets. And while I 
did thus, chancing to turn my head, I perceived that 
some were standing beside me to whom I should have 
given courteous welcome, and that they were ob- 
serving what I did; also, I learned afterwards that 
they had been there a while before I perceived 
them." — La Vita Nuova, p. 135. 

» "What time she made ready to salute me, the spirit 
of love destroying all other perceptions, thrust forth the 
feeble spirits of mine eyes, saying, 'Do homage unto 
your mistress,' and, putting itself in their place to 
obey; so that he who would might then have beheld 
Love, beholding the lids of mine eyes shake, And when 
this most gentle lady gave her salutation, Love . . . 
bred in me such an overpowering sweetness that my 
body, being all subjected thereto, remained many 
times helpless and passive." — La Vita Nuova, pp. 46, 47. 

8" I was in a place whence mine eyes could behold 
their beatitude; and betwixt me and her, in a direct 
line, there sat another lady of a pleasant favor; who 
looked round at me many times, marveling at my con- 
tinued gaze which seemed to have her for its object. 
And many perceived that she thus looked; so that, de- 
9 



130 DANTE. 

parting hence, I heard it whispered after me, 'Look 
you to what a pass such a lady hath brought him ' ; and 
in saying this they named her who had been midway 
between the most gentle Beatrice and mine eyes. 
Therefore I was reassured, and knew that, for that 
day, my secret had not been become manifest. Then 
immediately it came into my mind that I might make 
use of this lady as a screen to the truth, and so well did 
I play my part that the most of those who had hitherto 
watched and wondered at me, now imagined they had 
found me out. By her means I kept my secret con- 
cealed so till some years were gone over; and, for 
my better security, I even made divers rhymes in her 
honor." — La Vita Nuova, pp. 33, 34. 

9 ' ' He (Cavalcanti) was married for political reasons. 
. . . Rossetti sees a tendency in him to mingle 
'the perversity of a logician' with 'his amorous poe- 
try.'" — Ragg's Dante and His Italy, pp. 2^0, 2^2. . . . 
"His father, Cavalcanti, was a notorious sceptic and 
materialist. . . . Guido, too, passed for a sceptic." 
— Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 199. 

10" Then, musing on what I had seen, I proposed to 
relate the same to many poets who were famous in 
that day; and, for that I had made myself in some sort 
the art of discoursing with rhyme, I resolved on making 
a sonnet. ... I determined that I would make 
a grievous sonnet thereof the which I will write here, 
because it hath certain words in it whereof my lady 
was the immediate cause. These words I laid up with 
great gladness. . . . Wherefore having returned to 
the city I spake of, and considered thereof during cer- 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 131 

tain days, I began a poem. . . . After I had re- 
covered from my sickness, I bethought me to write 
these things in rhyme; deeming it a lovely thing to be 
knowp. . . . And to the end that this inward 
strife which I had undergone might not be hidden from 
all saving the miserable wretch who endured it, I 
proposed to write a sonnet and to comprehend in it 
this horrible condition. . . . And because I would 
willingly have spoken to them, if it had not been for 
discreetness, I made in my rhymes as though I had 
spoken, and they had answered me. And thereof I 
wrote two sonnets; in the first of which I addressed 
them as I would fain have done; and in the second re- 
lated their answer as though it had been spoken unto 
myself." — From Dante's own actounts in the Vita 
Nuova of his method of accepting from his experiences 
suggestions for his poems, pp. 29, 35, 87, 95, 142. 

11 "To this sonnet I received many answers, convey- 
ing many different opinions ; of the which one was sent 
by him whom I now call the first among my friends. 
. . . And indeed it was when he learned that I was he 
who had sent those rhymes to him, that our friendship 
commenced" (The friend of whom Dante here speaks 
was Guido Cavalcanti — Rossetti). La Vita Nuova 

P- 31- 

"The responsive sonnet breathes a spirit of encour- 
agement and comfort; it is the elder poet taking the 
younger by the hand and bidding him be of good cheer." 
— Ragg's Dante and His Italy, p. 283. 

» 2 Seeing that the epistle I speak of is in Latin, it 
belongeth not to mine undertaking; more especially 



132 DANTE. 

as I know that my chief friend, for whom I write this 
book, wished also that the whole of it should be in the 
vulgar tongue." — La Vita Ntwva, pp. 123, 124. 

13 "In the year 1289 Dante . . . took part in 
the battle of Campaldino where the Florentine Guelfs, 
15,000 men strong, defeated the Ghibellines and the 
people of Arezzo. . . . Dante served ... at 
the siege of the castle of Caprona ... in August 
of the same year." — Federn's Dante and His Time, 
pp. 201, 202. 

14 "When I behold Bacchina in a rage 
Just like a little lad I trembling stand 
Whose master tells him to hold out his hand. — 
Cecco Angiolieri, another of Dante's literary friends 
•who sings the praises of his rather shrewish lady-love, 
Bacchina." — Ragg's Dante and His Italy, p. 197. 

15 "From that time forward, Love quite governed 
my soul. ... I had nothing left for it but to do 
all his bidding continually . . . albeit her image 
. . . was yet of so perfect a quality that it never 
allowed me to be overruled by Love without the faith- 
ful counsel of reason whensoever such counsel was 
useful." — La Vita Nuova, pp. 25, 26. 

16 "Cosmo Donati was the leader of the Blacks — 'a 
knight after the fashion of the Roman Catiline, but 
more cruel than he, of noble blood and handsome 
appearance, a perfect orator with the finest man- 
ners, acutest mind and the very worst disposition,' 
that is Dino Compagni's description of him. The very 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 133 

beginning of his career was a violence done to law, for 
he liberated a criminal of noble birth with armed force. 
In the battle of Campaldino, it was he who decided the 
victory by a cavalry attack which he had been for- 
bidden under penalty of death, to make." — Federn's 
Dante and His Time, pp. 171, 172. 

i'**In the year 1289, the one preceding the death 
of Beatrice, Dante served with the foremost cavalry 
in the great battle of Campaldino, . . . when the 
Florentines defeated the people of Arezzo." — Introduc- 
tion to Dante's Vita Nuova, by D. Rossetti. 

18 "It came into my mind that I might make use of 
this lady as a screen to the truth ; and so well did I play 
my part that those who had hitherto watched and won- 
dered at me, now imagined they had found me out. 
. . . I made her my surety in such sort that the 
matter was spoken of by many in terms scarcely 
courteous; through the which I had oftenwhiles many 
troublesome hours. And by this it happened (to wit, 
by this false and evil rumor which seemed to misfame 
me of vice) that she who was the destroyer of all evil 
and the queen of all good, coming where I was, denied 
me her most sweet salutation, in the which alone was 
my blessedness." — La Vita Nuova, pp. 33, 45. 

19 ♦'In her salutation alone was there any beatitude 
for me. . . . When, for the first time, this beati- 
tude was denied me, I became possessed with such 
grief that, parting myself from others, I went into a 
lonely place to bathe the ground with most bitter tears." 
— La Vita Nuova, p. 4 7. 



134 DANTE. 

20 "This excellent lady came into such favor with all 
men that not only she herself was honored and com- 
mended, but through her companionship honor and 
commendation came unto others. . . . When 
she drew near unto any, so much truth and simplicity 
entered into his heart . . . she showed herself so 
gentle and so full of all perfection, that she bred in 
those who looked upon her a soothing quiet beyond 
any speech." — La Vita Nuova, pp. 115, 112, 113. 

21 "I, as was my friend's pleasure, resolved to stand 
with him and do honor to those ladies. But soon as I 
had thus resolved, I began to feel a faintness and a 
throbbing at my left side, which soon took possession 
of my whole body. Whereupon . . . being fearful 
lest my trembling should be discerned of them, I 
lifted mine eyes to look on those ladies, and then first 
perceived among them the excellent Beatrice. And 
when I perceived her, all my senses were overpowered, 
by the great lordship that love obtained, finding 
himself so near . . . until nothing but the spirits 
of sight remained in me; and even these remained 
driven out of their own instruments. ' ' — La Vita Nuova, 
P- 59. 

22 " I received the visit of a friend whom I counted as 
second unto me in the degrees of friendship (Cino) and 
who, moreover, had been united by the nearest kindred 
to that most gracious creature. And when we had a lit- 
tle spoken together, he began to solicit me that I should 
write somewhat in memory of a lady who had died; 
and he disguised his speech so as to seem to be speaking 
of another who was but lately dead; wherefore, I, 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 135 

perceiving that his speech was of none other than that 
blessed one herself, told him that it should be done 
as he required." — La Vita Nuova, p. 130. 

23 "After this most gracious creature had gone out 
from among us, the whole city came to be, as it were, 
widowed and despoiled of all its dignity." — La Vita 
Nuova, p. 123. 

2 4 "Then having sat for some space sorely in thought 
because of the time that was now past, I was so filled 
with dolorous imaginings that it became outwardly 
manifest in mine altered countenance. Whereupon 
feeling this, and being in dread lest any should have 
seen me, I lifted mine eyes to look; and then per- 
ceived a young and very beautiful lady. ... It 
happened after this that, whenever I was seen of this 
lady, she became pale and of a piteous countenance, as 
though it had been with love; whereby she remembered 
me many times of my own most noble lady who was 
wont to be of a like paleness." — La Vita Nuova, 
pp. 138, 140. 

2 5 "At length by the constant sight of this lady, mine 
eyes began to be gladdened overmuch with her com- 
pany, through which many times I had unrest and re- 
buked myself as a base person; also many times I 
cursed the unsteadfastness of mine eyes." — La Vita 
Nuova, pp. 141, 142. 

2 6 "The Pope by secret understanding with the Blacks 
sent the French Prince, Charles of Valois, as ' pacificator ' 
to Florence. *He came with the lance of Judas,' Dante 
says." — Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 245. 



136 DANTE. 

2 7 "Dante was no longer a religious pilgrim but a po- 
litical ambassador. 'Why are you Florentines so 
obstinate?' said the Pope. . . . 'Go back, two of 
you,' he said, 'and they shall have my benediction 
if they procure that my will be obeyed.' . . . Two 
to go, and one to stay. . . . Which of the three 
shall it be? Boniface had seen Dante face to face; 
here was the man who might thwart him. Better to 
keep this one in honorable imprisonment till the thing 
should be over and done. Was it not during these 
months when he was forced into unsympathetic in- 
timacy with the inner life of St. Peter's . . . that he 
acquired that fine scorn of the venal and simoniacal 
Roma Cura which made him declare, in after years, 
that during this very year of Jubilee his exile was being 
planned in the place where all day long they made mer- 
chandise of Christ." — Ragg's Dante and His Italy, pp. 
32,33- 

2 8 "Dante's own estimate of Cino is clear from the 
abundant references in the Eloquentia where Dante 
habitually speaks of himself as 'Cino's friend.' . . . 
The first and strongest bond of sympathy was that 
sympathy of mind and taste." — Dante and His Italy; 
Ragg, pp. 286, 287. 

29 "Witchcraft and necromacy were normal factors 
in daily life." — Ragg's Dante and His Italy, p. 144. 
"Divination and necromancy were largely resorted 
to in moments of crisis." — Idem., p. 143. "So great 
a hold had these mission preachers on the popular 
imagination, that a very general belief was entertained 
in their miraculous powers, and some of them had the 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 137 

reputation of being able to raise the dead." — Idem, pp. 
97, 98. "The Florentines whose reputation for wit 
was . . . great ... on hearing that the Domini- 
can John of Vicenza contemplated a visit to Florence 
. . . cried out in mock alarm : ' For heaven's sake 
don't let him come here. For we have heard that he 
raises the dead, and we are already so many that our 
city will scarcely hold us.' " — Idem., p. 200. 

30 "After writing this sonnet, it was given unto me to 
behold a very wonderful vision, wherein I saw things 
which determined me that I would say nothing further 
of this most blessed one until such time as I could dis- 
course more worthily concerning her. And to this end 
I labor all I can, as she well knoweth. Wherefore 
if it be his pleasure through whom is the life of all 
things, that my life continue with me a few years, it 
is my hope that I shall yet write concerning her what 
hath not before been written of any woman. After 
which may it seem good unto him who is the Master of 
Grace that my spirit should go hence to behold the 
glory of its lady; to wit, of that blessed Beatrice who 
now gazeth continually on his countenance qui est 
omnia scBcula henedictus. Laus Deo." — The concluding 
paragraph of La Vita Nuova, p. 159. "As he ex- 
plains it, the heavenly powers by mediation of loving 
and friendly spirits had so decreed it that his soul 
should be shown the way through the metaphysical 
realms where he could see the terrible retribution of 
God's justice and be satisfied." — Federn's Dante and His 
Time, p. 269. From the accounts given, we must infer 
that Dante supposed himself to have had an external 
vision of Beatrice, clearly separated from that which 



138 DANTE. 

might be experienced in a mere dream: and that this 
vision made "through the mediation of loving and 
friendly spirits," was of such a character as to cause 
him to spend most of the rest of his life developing from 
his own imagination the general conception of justice 
underlying his great poem. The scene in Act Fourth of 
this drama represents a very common, if not the most 
common, way in which, in all ages, men have been led 
to suppose themselves to have had an external vision 
of one dead ; as well as the most common way in which, 
having had it, the vision has induced them to develop 
the general thought which, at the time of having it, 
has controlled them. The fact that Dante, so frank 
with reference to every other experience related in 
La Vita Nuova, never explained the circumstances or 
character of this vision, is in exact accord with what we 
should expect from a wise man conscious of the possi- 
bilities of delusion and deception connected with an 
experience such as is depicted in the drama. He would 
not have risked the danger of being thought a consulter 
of sorcerers, many of whom in those times were dis- 
reputable violators of the law, or of being thought a 
dupe of a monk of the church, following their practices 
in a supposed more legitimate way. At the same time, 
in the circumstances, notwithstanding much that 
could not absolutely convince himself, much less others, 
it is perfectly conceivable that the poet's sympathetic 
and imaginative nature should have been so profoundly 
influenced by the possibilities suggested by what he 
had experienced that this should have had a formative 
effect upon his whole career. — The Author. 

3 J "The sight of this lady brought me into so un- 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 



139 



wonted a condition that I often thought of her as one 
too dear to me; and I began to consider her thus. . . . 
Perhaps it was Love himself who set her in my 
path, so that my life might find peace. And there 
were times when I thought yet more fondly, until my 
heart consented unto its reasoning. But, when it had 
so consented, my thought would often turn round upon 
me as moved by reason and cause me to say within my- 
self, ' What hope is this which would console me after 
so base a fashion?'" — La Vita Nuova, p. 144. "Boc- 
caccio tells us that Dante was married to Gemma Don- 
ati about a year after the death of Beatrice. Can 
Gemma then be the ' lady ' . . . his love for whom 
Dante so condemns?" — Rossetti's note on the preceding 
passage. 

3 2 "At the burial of a lady of the Frescobaldi fam- 
ily, a man's movements that had been misunderstood, 
had caused bloodshed. ... In the year 1300, 
while Dante was one of the priors, they made an at- 
tempt to insure peace by banishing the most unruly 
chiefs of both parties. Among the exiled blacks was 
Corso Donati, while Dante, with his severe sense of 
justice, had suffered his friend Cavalcanti to be con- 
fined at Sarzana, where he fell ill from the unhealthy 
climate, and died . . two months later." — Federn's 
Dante and His Time, p. 240. " 'This unhappy Priorate,' 
he once said, 'was the cause of all my misfortune.'" — 
idem., p. 240. 

33 "Dante at this time contracted such enormous 
debts that many years later the family saw itself 



I40 DANTE. 

constrained to sell estates to pay them." — Federn's 
Dante and His Time, p. 239. 

34 "The decree against D^nte which to this day may 
be read in the so-called Libro del Chiode in the archive 
of Florence. . . . Dante and four others are 
condemned for peculation, fraud, extortion, bribery, 
and rebellion against the Pope and Charles ... as 
proof, public fame is alleged. . . . Having failed 
to appear in court, all the accused in it were declared 
outlaws and exiles in perpetuity, and if ever one of 
them should be caught on Florence soil he should be 
burned alive." — Federn's Dante and His Time, pp. 246, 
247. 

3s "Then there is Dino Frescobaldi, 'famous rhymer 
of Florence,' through whom, if Boccaccio is to be trusted 
Dante received back in exile the original draft of the 
first seven cantos of the Inferno." — Ragg's Dante and 
His Italy, p. 273. "They had been left behind, with 
everything else, in Florence. . . . hurriedly con- 
cealed . . . when he was exiled. . . . And 
with the manuscript, says Boccaccio, came a fervent 
letter to the Marquis . . . urging him to persuade 
Dante to continue so great a work. And so, at the 
urgent plea of his host Dante was induced to proceed. 
. . . And for this good advice of the Malaspina 
Dante was so grateful, says Benvenuto, that he could 
never say anything good enough of the family." — 
Idem., pp. 332, 333. 

36"Cino . . was exiled . . five years after 
Dante had been cast out of Florence, in 1307, the mem- 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 141 

orable year of the advent of Henry VII. . . . One 
of Cino's poems deserves the lasting approbation of 
posterity, for in it he urges Dante to continue his great 
poem and so redeem the pledge given at the end of the 
Vita Nuovay — Ragg's Dante and His Italy, pp. 286, 287. 

37 "In the year 13 10, Henry of Luxemburg came to 
Italy. By no one was he saluted with such exultation 
as by Dante. He wrote letters full of wild and trium- 
phant joy to Rome and Florence and to all princes of 
Italy. He had an audience with the Emperor; and in 
his letters he calls him the ' new Moses' and ' the Lamb 
of God.' He was full of the most ardent hopes . . . 
but the enterprise failed, and the Emperor died at 
Buonconvento on August 24, 13 12. . . What 
Dante felt at this blow he never expressed. Now all 
was over, all hope gone forever. . . . Again he 
wandered a banished fugitive on unknown ways." — 
Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 262. 

38 "This then has been signified to me through the 
letters ... of several friends that if I were willing 
to pay a certain sum of money and submit to the stigma 
of being offered up as a sin-offering, I might be pardoned 
and return at once. . . . Far from a man . . . 
be the reckless humility of a heart of dirt that would 
allow him like a certain Cioli ... to make an 
offering of himself, as if he were a caitiff. ... If 
any other way can be discerned which does not touch 
the fame of Dante and his honor, that I will accept 
with alacrity. But if by no such way, Florence is to 
be entered, then Florence I shall never enter." — Letter 



142 DANTE. 

of Dante tr. on page 127 of A Handbook to Dante by 
Thomas Davidson. 

39 "Some suppose the individual in question to be a 
certain Lippo Lapi Cioli, who among others is said to 
have been allowed to return to Florence in 13 16 on con- 
dition that he should walk behind the Carroccio with a 
fool's cap on his head, etc." — Dictionary of Proper 
Names, etc., in the Works of Dante by Paget Trynbee. 

*o "Already at the time when Beatrice had been lost 
to him, and his thoughts followed her into the other 
world, his mind was deeply and intensely occupied with 
the Invisible, and his imagination attracted by its 
glories and hidden terrors . . . His eye pierced 
through the boundaries of time and space into the 
surrounding sphere of eternity; the wrongs done here 
were repaired and punished there. To see this, it had 
become necessary or, as he explains it, the heavenly 
power by mediation of loving and friendly spirits had 
so decreed that his soul should be shown the way 
through the metaphysical realms where he could see the 
terrible retribution of God's justice and be satisfied. 

. . The state of horrible crime on earth was not 
all — the last word was not spoken here — he could be 
calmer and endure all knowing what was to follow." — • 
Federn's Dante and His Time, pp. 268, 269. 



MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN 



143 



GREYLOCK. 

PRIEND of my youth, my first of mountain 
*• friends, 

Friend long before I saw thee, in the days 
When, dwelling in a realm of endless plains, 
Those whom thy shade had haunted pointed 

out 
The clouds, and bade me find thine image 

there, — 
With what delight my heart first welcomed 

thee! 
And then, like one whose form lies prone in 

sleep, 
My young imagination woke and rose 
And strove to climb, and heaven alone can 

tell 
How wisely has been climbing ever since. 
With what delight, day after day, for years, 
My eyes would watch thee looming through 

the light 
Of early mom, and how they since have longed 
For thee when absent ! Nor, at any time — 
10 145 



146 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN. 

Not after years had parted us — did not 
The sight of thee outdo all expectation. 

The works of human art may lose their charm. 
The picture, statue, building, wear no mail 
That can resist the subtle shafts of time. 
Their brighest color fades, their bronze corrodes, 
Their carving crumbles, and their marble 

falls. 
Oft, too, when one has wandered far from 

home. 
And craves the things he once thought wrought 

so well, 
The soul's enlargement of the treasures missed 
That each may fit a niche of larger longing 
Will make all seem, when seen again, but 

small, 
And, tested by the touch of present fact. 
But fabrics of a dream conjured by fancy. 
Not so with works of Nature. Years that pass 
May make the field more brilliant with more 

flowers. 
The ore more precious and the cave more vast. 
And every mount, at our renewed return. 
Soar higher like thick smoke above a flame 
Fanned into ardor by the panting breath 
Of fleet-sped winds that rush to its embrace. 



GREY LOCK. 



147 



And so with thee, O Greylock! Thou art yet 
More grand, more beautiful, than when, of yore, 
I sought thee, in that earliest rash attempt 
To climb thy hights by scaling first the steeps 
Of Prospect, pulled through thorny under- 
brush 
From limb to limb, like some primeval man 
When mounting rounds of some Ygdrasil tree ; 
Or when I tried that long, but shorter, course 
That first essays Bald Mountain; or, again. 
Sought first the Notch. To-day, as always 

comes 
That sense of restful triumph when one nears 
Those overshadowing forests that emboss 
That glorious bowl, the Hopper! — when one 

treads 
Those winding paths amid thick arching trees 
Where, in the lack of outlook, naught can solve 
The mystery of the hight save lungs that breathe 
The thrill and uplift of a purer air ; 
And where, like spirits that have been inspired 
But never can be conscious how or when. 
Keen thoughts will still outpace achievement, 

till, 
All suddenly, upon the eye will burst 
The unobstructed vision from thy peak, — 
The hills that sweep from Adams at thy base 



148 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN. 

To far Monadnock and the emulous mounts 
That rise, as if from crowds that would be 

counted, 
Above the hardly hid Connecticut, 

Oh, some may praise the plain! It has its use 
For plow and reaper, railway and canal ; 
But all that human hand could ever plant 
Or thought invent, or energy transport 
Could never, through long ages, bring to- 
gether 
What here were gathered in a few short hours, — • 
A wealth of mound and meadow to suffice 
For many a county, all rolled up in one, 
A hundred miles of surface in a score, 
A score of climates in a single mile. 
And all the treasury of plant or soil 
From half a continent arrayed against 
The slopes that flank a solitary valley. 
Who says there are no wiser views of life 
Where every view displays a wider range? 
More blest a decade spent in scenes like this 
Than ages in some never-ending plain. 

And what of those here who can never climb 
These hights, or gaze upon their heaven-like 
vision ? — 



GREY LOCK. 149 

Did ever yet a form appear on earth 
Divine in mission that would fail to bless 
Those, too, who could but touch its garment's 

hem? 
As long as thinking can be shaped by things. 
And that which holds our life can mold our 

love, 
What soul can seek the skies with wistful gaze 
And be content with only soil below? 
Oh, does it profit naught that one should dwell 
Amid surroundings that no eyes can see 
Save as they look above, no feet can leave. 
To seek the outer world, save as they climb? 
Where every prospect homes itself on high, 
And each horizon seems a haunt of heaven? 
One might believe, O Mount, as on thy sides 
The thumb-marks of the Hopper show them- 
selves, 
That thou wast made a handle, humpt and huge. 
Which some magician of the sky could wield 
While in the hollow basin at thy base 
All things were lifted to a loftier life ! 

How blest the child whose thought begins to 

build 
Ideals of deeds on dreams that, morn by morn. 
Awake to greet a mother's flushing face 



150 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLI AMSTOWN. 

That bends above his cradle ! Many a soul 
Reared in these valleys where, like mighty 

sides 
Of some far grander cradle, lift these hills, 
And where in bleakest wintry skies appears 
Thy mountain's white brow warmed with flush 

of dawn. 
Has waked to see thee, day by day, until 
The habit grew a part of life itself 
And ruled his being, — that whatever light 
Left heaven or lit the earth would find his form 
In paths where it was always moving upward. 



BERLIN MOUNTAIN. 

'T'HIS world is wider than the range of work, 
* Nor shows its worth through merely gar- 
nered gains. 
Yon barren mount where only scrub oaks grow 
May yield, at times, a harvest for the soul 
More blest than ever filled the best of farms. 
Think not that every leaf that sprouts in spring 
Must be a stem straight-pointed toward a 

flower ; 
That every bud must bring a blossom-nest 
In which to hatch and home a future fruit. 



BERLIN MOUNTAIN. 



151 



Full many a leaf can only catch the shower 
And quench the dry limb's thirst ; full many a bud 
Grow blight alone as might a short-lived spark 
Aglow to show some source of kindled fragrance; 
Aglow to show itself a part and partner 
Of that excess of service in which all 
The starry worlds are joined, as, hung beneath 
Heaven*s dome, like golden censers brimmed 

with fumes 
Of smouldering myrrh, their God-enkindled fires 
Now flash, now fail, while souls, awe- thrilled -to 

thought. 
Both trust and fear their fires' unfailing Source. 

In every sphere, beyond what merely meets 
The first demand of need, there issues forth 
A constant overflow. 'T is this that brings 
More sunlight than the eye of toil exhausts, 
More summer rain than clears and cools the air 
Where smoke and flame the world's too heated 

axles. 
'T is this regales the hunger of fatigue 
By foretastes of refreshment never failing. 
And shows, beyond the prisons of this earth, 
Through opening gates, the free expanse of 

heaven. 
Without this overflow, no wish could play, 



152 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN, 

No thought could dream, no fancy slip the links 
Of logic, and wing off with childlike faith 
And poise o'er mysteries too deep for sight. 
Without it, not one poet would repeat 
His empty echoes of life's humdrum work, 
His rhythmic laughter of disburdened thought. 
Without it, not one artist would essay 
To mimic Nature when it molds to gems 
Its melting worthlessness, or, like a wizard, 
Waves with its wand to welcome bubbling 

froth 
And turn to amber that which aimed for air. 
Without it, ah, without it, there would be 
No life of life more grand by far than all 
That worlds can outline or that minds con- 
ceive, — 
No wings to lift aloft our thrilling souls 
And bear them on, unconscious how or why, 
Far past all limits of all earth-moved thought 
Until, at last, they seem to reach the verge 
Of heaven's infinity. 

Meantime, confined 
Where only finite form can hint of what 
Inspires formation, many souls there are — 
Oh, may I join them! — who, in all things 
earthly, 



BERLIN MOUNTAIN. 153 

Behold what evermore transfigures earth. 

No scene can greet them but it brings to sight 

Far less than to suggestion ; not a tone 

Whose harmony springs not from overtones; 

And not a partial stir but, like a pulse, 

It registers what heart-beat moves the whole. 

So let this valley grow its flower and fruit. 
So let the minds that fill the valley fare 
On food they find in book and business. 
Give me the flowerless leaf, the fruitless branch, 
The mountain pushing up to barrenness, 
The scrub-oak and the rock — and, oh, the view! 
Away with work, and let me, free from care, 
Mount on and up! — No weak distractions now; 
No wait at Flora's Glen; no word to hint 
Her modest welcome and her wanton wiles! 
They seldom lured me in the past, and here — 
Why, here, at present, look! — there lifts Bee 

Hill! 
Come, serve with me, my day-long moun- 
taineer, 
Our short apprenticeship, and compass this 
Before the longer climb that waits beyond; — 
Ay, like an archer when he tries his bow, 
Essay this littler bend; and, by-and-by. 
Our limbs will limber for the larger aim. 



154 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN. 

Now tramp we up the last vale's long ascent; 
Now, on the narrow ridge, see half of earth. 
And more than half of heaven, each side of 

us; 
And here, upon the peak, at last, we pierce 
The core where all sublimeness finds a center. 
Not all, you say? — Then tell me where on 

earth 
A lesser summit taps a larger view ; — 
See, south, the Berkshires, west of them, the 

Cat skills, 
Then, northward, up the far, wide Hudson 

valley, 
The Adirondacks and the great Green range, 
With, here and there, a knoll that gives a 

hint 
Of highlands past the north Connecticut, 
But, best of all, close by, the Housatonics, 
And, walled against the east, this Greylock 

group 
Heaped near like models to reveal in full 
What wealth were in them all, if clearly seen. 
One day like this that lifts a life on high 
Where spirit seems to breathe its native air 
Is better than to dream a score of nights 
Where sleep is tinkering in its dark garage 
The tire that gains mere physical repair. 



BERLIN MOUNTAIN. 155 

And why should one descend? Why cannot 

now 
This whirling world whisk off the willing spirit 
And let it shoot through space, and go and go, 
And never come again? Ah, why should fate 
Leave thought entangled like an eagle here 
Whose wings are bound, and feet can only 

crawl 
So slowly, and, when one so longs to fly. 
So painfully? — And yet there sounds a bell 
From out the valley. Why this call to work? 
Why this reluctant journey down the hill? — 
One scarcely dare look backward till, at last, 
The autumn's gold and crimson in the aisle 
That cleaves its glorious arch through Torrey's 

woods 
Converts rebellious raving to remorse 
That, even for an hour, one could forget 
What beauty waits in low as well as high — 
In all this realm, which nature, like a mother 
That loves her child, has fashioned for his 

home. 

Now back and down again to book and duty ! 
But who are these we meet? — Our comrades? 

—Oh, 
Were they of us? — Alas, ye narrow souls, 



156 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN. 

Awake, and fly, like slaves that would be free! 
Like those not made for soil but for the sky ! 
Bound down to petty tasks, more useless ye 
Than ships loosed never from their anchorage, 
Nor sailed to ports for which they have been 

freighted. 
Oh, think ye ends that souls were made to gain 
Were ever reached by one who never breathed 
A higher air, or saw a higher sight 
Than those on which contracted brows are bent 
In library or laboratory? — what? — 
Does thought grow broader, whittled down to 

point 
At microscopic nuclei of dust, 
As if the world were by, not with them, built? — 
As if the game of true success were played 
By matching parts whose wholes are curios? 
Nay, nay! Life's greatest gain is life itself; 
And life, though lived in matter, is not of it; 
Not of the object that our aims pursue, 
Not of the body that pursues it, not 
Of all the world of which itself and us 
Are parts. Nay, all things that the eye can 

see 
Are but vague shadows of reality 
Cast on a frail environment of cloud, — 
But illustrations of a general trend 



WEST MOUNTAIN. 157 

Which only has enduring entity, 

And is, and was, and always must be, spirit. 

There is one only mission fit for man, — 
To be a spirit ministering to spirit. 
What fits for this? — A breath of higher sky, 
A sight of higher scenes, at times, a strife 
To mount by means impossible as yet. 
What then? — Believe me that the spirit-air, 
Like all the air above the soil we tread. 
Takes to its own environment of light 
No growth to burst there into flower and fruit 
That does not get some start, and root itself 
Amid this lower world's deep, alien darkness, — 
No spirit uses wings in heaven that never 
Has learned of them, or longed for them, on 
• earth. 



WEST MOUNTAIN. 

jV T O hands of human art could be the first 

^ ^ To draw thy contour's broken lines against 

The ended glory of the sunset sky. 

No thought of human mind could ever plan. 

Nor power uphold them. Nay, they must have 

sprung 
To shape like this when some primeval frost 



158 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN. 

Chilled, caught, and crystallized the storm-swept 

waves 
Of chaos that, arrested in their rage, 
They fitly might portray the power beneath. 
Stay there, great billows, all your boulder-drops 
Held harmless where they hang; and all the 

spray 
That might have dashed above them merely 

leaves 
Of bush and forest, held to equal pause 
Save where, perchance, their fluttering, now 

and then. 
Reveals a feeling that they once were free ; 
Stay there, suspended in the sky! But, sure 
As days roll up the sun, an hour must come 
When blazing blasts again shall shake these 

peaks, 
Shall pile them higher, level them to plains, 
Or melt them back to primal nothingness. 
Meantime their mission shall be what it is : 
To teach the world, not rest, but, restlessness, — 
The aspiration and the aim of art 
That will not bide contented till the law 
Of thought shall supersede the law of things, 
And that which in the midnight of this world 
Is but a dream shall be fulfilled in days 
Where there is no more matter, only mind, 



WEST MOUNTAIN. 159 

And beauty, born of free imagination, 
Shall wait but on the sovereignty of spirit. 

How oft in youth I gazed tipon these hights 
Uprising to refresh a faltering faith 
With wistful wonder and inspiring zest ! 
For this how often have I climbed these fields 
From foot-hills to the Snow-hole ; then, reclined 
Against the western slope, looked off to give 
A god-speed to the sun, and half believed 
The blue-tint sky-sheet held to light against 
The little town of learning that I loved 
Could bear away with photographic art 
That which should give enlightenment to all 
The western land through which it should be 
trailed. 

How often, with a single friend, at times, — 
At times with many, — I have lingered there ; 
And then, as if the very air breathed in 
From broader, grander spaces could inspire 
To thoughts of broader reach and grander 

import, 
It seemed that there was naught in earth or 

sky 
Or shop or study — did we deign descend 
To this more common world — that was not all 



i6o MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN. 

Discussed if not decided. Nor confined 

To bounds material were we. While the wind 

Would whistle through the trees and round the 

rocks, 
Our shouts would join them, now, perchance, 

intent 
To rouse loud echoes dealt us like applause 
For ungrown voices that would fit themselves 
To bear the burden of the larger thought 
For which the world beyond our youth seemed 

waiting ; 
And now, perchance, though seldom recog- 
nized, 
Nor if, though subtly recognized, confessed, 
Intent to gain fore-echoes, as it were, 
Of that which should be college approbation 
When words that to the air were now rehearsed 
Should load the breath that carries freight to 

spirit, 
And, borne along the clogs of others' pulses, 
Should start that subtle surging in the veins 
That proves the presence and completes the 

work 
Of what impels to rhythmic rhetoric. 

Then, warned by coming twilight we would 
turn, 



WEST MOUNTAIN. l6l 

And dare to lose the path, and plunge adown 

Where, lured by rock or rill, we snapt apart 

The net-work of the tangled underbrush, 

As if to seize wild prey enmeshed therein — 

Oh, happy days of youth! when empty sport 

Of mere imagination — fancied game — 

Could fill the hunter's pouch to overflowing! 

Ay, how much better than the days of age — 

Alas, I fear it, too, of modern youth 

For whom, so rich in matter, poor in mind, 

We manufacture implements of play 

That clip at fancies till they all fit facts, 

Plane joys to toys, and level games to gain, 

Till every pleasure palls that fails to pay 

In scales that rate life's worth by what it 

weighs 
When all the spirit's buoyancy is lost. 

How often with no friend except myself — 
And he, at times, no friend — my feet have trod 
These woods, the while my soul has longed to 

rise 
Successfully as field and cliff and tree 
To hights where one could dwell above a world 
Whose common life appeared but all too com- 
mon. 
Its aims too low for love to seek and honor, 



l62 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN. 

And yet a world in which my own self, too, 
My body, spirit, all, bore part and share. 

At times, these moods would pass like shadows 

trailed 
Across the darkened meadows from far clouds 
That swiftly sail the sky; at times, they came 
To stay and root themselves like seeds that make 
The brush more thorny with each season's 

growth. 
And, oh, one night there was — can I forget it? 
Not while the sky above and earth beneath 
And all within my consciousness can last — 
A night — and not the sole one — when, as if 
My trembling human body were possessed 
As by a demon of insane desire 
To make its loneliness a fitting frame 
For the deep loneliness of moods within, 
I strolled, at midnight, through the shade- 
veiled elms. 
Across the western rise, and down the hill. 
What mattered how complained the creaking 

bridge. 
Or bustling brook, disturbed by moon and me ; 
How marshalled into rows the ghost-like forms, 
White mantled in the hill-side cemetery? — 
On, on, I pressed until, through haunted aisles 



WEST MOUNTAIN, 163 

Of phantom-fashioned trees and looming mounds 
That rose like mighty tombs of giants dead 
Whose spirits yet seemed round me, — on I 

pressed 
Until I reached that great right angle where 
All farms and all things fertile lie below 
And only barren slopes of steril rock 
And trees that nature struggles to disown 
Await the climber who would still move on. 
And then I paused, and then I looked below, 
And asked what could be there for me, and then 
I looked above and asked what could be there. 
Mistakes of others and my own, as well, 
The land's financial stress, and that strange 

stress 
Of human fellowship which sometimes makes 
A fellow- worker, from his very zeal 
To help another, elbow him aside, 
Had seemed to force me to a precipice 
As real as any that my feet could find ; 
And I must fight, or fall; and if I fought 
Must fight myself and fight my every friend. 
Oh, do not think that heaven moves all alike! 
Some minds are sighted for a single aim, 
And right for others may be wrong for them ! 
Oh, do not think the tempter, when he comes. 
Proclaims his presence through acknowledged ill ! 



1 64 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLI AMSTOWN. 

His most seducing tones may leave the lips 

Of friends, or those who best may pose as 

friends ; 
His direst pitfall-paths mount up, nor hint 
What crumbling crags their garden glories 

wreathe. 
You deem that, at the crisis of his life, 
It was a devil Jacob wrestled with? — 
Nay, nay; Hosea's term for him was angel. 

What but my own good angel could recall 

The plans of others and the hopes of self 

For early, easy, individual gain, 

Position, influence, all that most men wish? 

And what except this angel's foe was it 

That made contend with these a force conjured 

From inward consciousness of mind and body, 

With all the doubts that shadowed thought in 

one. 
And nerves that stirred revulsion in the other, 
As if to make my spirit fly as far 
From fellow-spirits as those mountain hights 
Were far from all that should be in one's home? 

The darkest night brings dawn. You ask the 

end? — 
What if the purpose that my soul then formed 



WEST MOUNTAIN. 165 

Remain still far too sacred to reveal ? 
What if I failed to do as friends had hoped ? 
What if I lived for years discredited? — 
God knows that I have tried to live my life ; 
Nor from the trophies of the outside world 
Have often sought or longed for recompense. 

Oh, there are views of life that so depend 

On inward entity at work beneath 

The whole that has been, or that can be, 

shown 
In what men merely see or hear or clutch. 
That each and all seem hollow as mere husks. 
To-day a man is young, to-morrow, old; 
To-day in health, to-morrow in disease; 
To-day enthroned, to-morrow in his grave; 
And not alone to man these changes come. 
The earth, our home, that so enduring seems. 
The sun and stars that light it from above 
Belong but to a camp, set up to-day. 
And, on the morrow, fell 'd and flung aside. 

What then remains for life? — If one have aimed 
For outward profit, nothing. If his thought 
Have always, through the outer, sought the 

inner. 
Then, not alone, the stars that shine on high 



l66 MOUNTAINS ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN. 

May all prove beacons, guiding on and on 

To havens holding glories infinite, 

But each frail flower that blooms for but an 

hour 
May store in memory an ideal of beauty, 
A sense of sweetness, that shall never leave 

him. 



How vain to let affections all go forth 
To things material, hard and heavy foes. 
Whose mission is to fall at once and crush, 
Or, through long labor, wear our spirits out ! 
How much more wise, behind the shape, to 

seek 
The substance, and, in sympathy with it. 
Learn of the life that never was created 
But all things were created to reveal! 
Ah, he who learns of this, and comes to live 
In close communion with it, finds, at times. 
When Nature whom he loves has laid aside 
Her outer guise and clasps him to her heart, 
That there are mysteries, not vague but clear. 
Not formless but concrete, which, it must be. 
That those alone can know, or have a right 
To know, who always, like a faithful spouse, 
Have kept their spirits to the spirit true. 



WEST MOUNTAIN, 167 

And when these mounts, like mighty sheets 

above 
Some slumbering giant soon to wake and walk, 
Fall back to formlessness from whence they came, 
What wisdom shall be proved the choice of him 
Whose eyes, in mercy shielded from the blaze 
On which the soul alone can look and live, 
Did not mistake mere grossness in the form 
For the true greatness of the inward force ; 
Whose mind too slightly taught, as yet, perhaps. 
To read, beneath the picture, all the text, 
Has yet surmised its meaning by that faith 
Which, though its guide be instinct, dares to 

think. 
And, though it bow to greet the symbol, yet 
Lets not its magic cast a spell on sense ! 
To him the world seems but a transient school ; 
The universe, a university; 

The blue that homes the sunlight and the stars, 
A dome above a vast museum built 
With glens for alcoves, plains for galleries. 
And mounts for stairways, where he works 

and waits 
Till comes the day he takes his last degree. 
And then goes forth, and leaves all these be- 
hind. 
Yet, in a true sense, holds them his forever. 



PARALLELS AND PARABLES 



169 



THE LAST HOME-GATHERING. 

T^HE age -worn dame her pale hand laid 
^ On the arm of her trembling age-worn 

maid. 
"We both are white enough and lean 
To go with ghosts where ghosts are seen. 
And I have dreamt they come to-day ; 
Thanksgiving Day they come, I say! 
So get the table set, " she cried. 
"I will," her wondering maid replied. 

Off through the wild November sky, 
A storm, was it, that there drew nigh? 
Or was it a pall-car of the dead 
With crape-like curtains round it spread? 
And oh, was a death-doom ever due 
But lives that were sunny before it flew? 
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, as the thing came on, 
To have seen the hurry and scurry, anon ! 
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, to have seen the way 
The breezes before it began to play ! — ■ 
It came like a boy who whistles first 
To warn of his form that shall on us burst, 
As if nature feared to jar the heart 
By joys too suddenly made to start. 
171 



172 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

It came like the peck on the blind by a bird 
That taps for help when a hawk is heard ; 
It came like the shot of the pickets of rain 
When sunshine flies from a window-pane. 
But who of us ever can judge the way 
A storm will strike from its first felt spray ? 
The walkers without soon found in the sleet 
A net that was tripping their floundering feet, 
A veil that was falling as light as lace 
But snapped as it hit each stinging face, 
Then shattered to scatter the street below 
With hail-shot followed by smoke of snow. 
The snow, it followed and lay like soot 
Swept down from realms its white could pollute. 
Or was it, instead, a pure rug spread 
For the feet that came in that car of the dead? 
The car moved on with threatening shade 
To the home of the age-worn dame and maid. 

Meantime, the table, it had to be spread. 

"Get ready, get ready!" the white dame said. 

"Get ready what? — We mortals eat. 

But think you that ghosts deem eating a treat? — 

No hollow within have they to fill, 

No blood to flow, no nerve to thrill. 

But get you flowers, all fresh and sweet, 

A vase of flowers each guest to greet. 



THE LAST HOME-GATHERING. 173 

Of all things leaving the world at death, 
There is nothing of which we know but breath. 
And what but fragrance can they bear 
The whole of whose bodies are merely air? " 
So out of the hot-house flowers were brought, 
And round the table wreaths were wrought, 
And a full vase rose at each one's place, 
Awaiting anon a ghostly face. 
Beneath them all a pure white spread 
Made whiter the light by each candle shed. 
Each candle glittering, right or left, 
Like a fire-fly caught in a June-night theft. 
For a while, the flowers that warmed the room 
Kept back the chill of the outer gloom. 
For a while, the symbols of life and health 
Had brought to that winter the summer's wealth. 
For a while, those watchers had waived the truth 
And brought their old age back to youth. 

Then the door, it shook with a gust of the blast. 
The ghostly guests were there at last. 
"Come in, come in!" with eyes aflame, 
"Come in, come in!" cried the age -worn dame. 

"Ah, Bessie, my child, it is you! It is you! — 
Still always the first, whatever you do? 
How oft, like the dear, sweet elf of a dream, 



174 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

Just mantling in light at the dawn's first gleam, 

I have watched your form come shining through 

A halo of rays less bright than you. 

And when, with the others, you left for school 

Your feet went always first, as a rule. 

Your voice came first, when I heard their play, 

And your voice first when they knelt to pray. 

Of all our children you first were wed;. 

And, alas, you too were the first with the dead. 

Oh, lead you still amid spirits above? 

If so, let me follow you there, my love; 

For the one that led to the best things here 

Must be some spirit that heaven holds dear. 

"And Benny, my boy with the golden hair. 
And a faith so sure that each day would be fair! 
I think it was never a part of God's plan 
That you should grow from a boy to a man. 
So gentle, so yielding, your face all aglow 
To follow each friend, and never say * No, ' 
The skies too cloudless dawned for you, 
Too sunny and warm — oh, nothing grew! 
Your golden fields that we fondly saw 
Were filled with a grainless crop of straw. 
Ah, child of my heart, to think that the grave 
Was the one thing left your honor to save ! 
And yet, a boy that so could love, — 



THE LAST HOME-GATHERING. 175 

Has a heart like yours no hold above? 
If one's own spirit tempt not astray, 
But only the senses it fails to sway, 
Where worth is judged by spirit, I dream 
That some prove better than here they seem. — 
Besides, besides, with Bessie you stand — 
Oh God, I thank thee! She holds your hand. 

''Here too comes Mary, you sweetest of all 
That earth ever steeped in a brine of gall. 
By your lover deceived, by many belied. 
And long in suffering ere you died, — 
Oh, what is the meaning of life like yours? 
Does heaven mistake the traits that it cures? . 
Or must the mood of a soul when trained 
Be gauged by the discipline each has gained? 
And is discipline never in reach of those 
Whose natures have never been crushed by woes? 
Do the cheeriest need the weariest strife. 
Ere broken to bear what blesses our life? 
Is the test of true metal the blow and the scrape 
And the time that it takes to bend it in shape? 
If so, perhaps, it is well that the best 
Are those to whom earth brings the least of rest. 

"And John, my eldest! — Are you too dead? — 
No, no ; I see — You are shaking your head ; 



176 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

And yet you have sent your spirit, — my stay, 
As of old, when your father was taken away. 
Of all our children, you promised the least, 
Yet your rising above them has not yet ceased. 
Your face was not fair, your mind not keen. 
But you had what was better, — a strength 

unseen. 
When all of our household shook at the blast, 
Like a gnarled knit oak, you still stood fast. 
No wonder the boy that so could stand 
Is now a stay of our whole broad land! 
Ah yes, though dense the depths around, 
No high-aimed spirit to them is bound; 
No heaven-aimed spirit abides in a grave; 
But surely as air when plunged in a wave. 
Whatever may try to hinder or stop. 
There comes a time when it comes to the top. 

"And Martha, — you always were planning for 

woe. 
Yet whose whole life more joy could show? 
In man as in nature, the outward jar 
Less brings our trouble than what we are. 
The wind may but tickle the grass or the tree 
That lashes to fury the wave of the sea. 
Your mood was a sea; but oh, how bright 
It glimmered to image the whole world's light! 



THE LAST HOME-GATHERING. 177 

Your husband a model, your children all fair, 

Your days your own, so empty of care, — 

A life to which sorrow mostly came 

Like a stranger of whom one hears but the 

name, — 
Ah, well, it was kind of your spirit to stray 
From your own bright home to see me to-day ! 

* ' And others too coming. — Oh how they crowd ! — 
Their father of whom we were all so proud, 
My half, not only, the staff of my strife, 
Whose loss could but make me a cripple for life ; 
And all the dear children of Martha and John, — 
Our children that make our houses anon 
Weird mirrors in which, with scarcely a blur, 
Our own lost lives we see as we were. 
Come in, come in, you are welcome, my dears! 
Come in, come in, and forget the years! 
Sit down, sit down! Thank God for the past 
And life to be ours long as memories last." 

She rose to greet them, but, fainting, fell — 

Ah no ; it was no mere fainting spell ! 

Her maid affrighted clutcht the dame's form. 

And wept, and called, and heard but the storm. 

A mighty blast the door flew back. 

The lights were out; the room was black. 



178 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

Her maid affrighted heard no more. 
She knelt in darkness on the floor. 

And when the neighbors came at dawn, 
The table stood, the guests were gone. 
And, side by side, at rest they laid 
The age-worn mistress and her maid. 



MIDNIGHT IN A CITY PARK. 

O LEEP on, O World, that I no more shall see, 
^ Sleep on, nor be disturbed by dreams of me. 
What cares this oak for one leaf downward tost, 
Or what all earth that one like me is lost ? 

The soul I love, the comrades of my strife, 
All, all forsake me. Why wish I for life? 
Bend over me, ye grim boughs of the park, 
And fold me in the coffin of the dark. 

Hung high above this crape-like dusk of night. 
The star-lights flicker, and, with star-like light, 
The street-lamps ranged in order round me glow. 
What victor's pall was ever lighted so? 

Here let me end my life. In death's long sleep 
No more shall weary eyes close but to weep, 



MIDNIGHT IN A CITY PARK. 179 

Nor thoughts keep mining from the darkened 

brain 
Fit fuel for the morrow's burning pain. 

I might have tricked the men that did me 

wrong ; 
Have made them mourn for what they met with 

song; 
I might have spoken out and proved their lie, 
But meek, considerate, loyal, lo I die. 

How many die, or all they live for lose 
Because of weapons honor cannot use! 
What hopes men bury that the ghosts which rise 
May lead the dance of others toward the skies ! 

H but the truth of love a soul should tell 
What hearts might break, what homes become 

a hell! 
n touched by ardor of one's brightest aims, 
How black his earth might scorch beside the 

flames ! 

There, in that mansion, where the light burns 

late, 
A wife with smiles will greet her drunkard-mate; 
And yet in secret long for his fond eye 
Who waits for her until that mate shall die. 



l8o PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

Within that barn -built house like steeds men rein 
Stern parents curse and scourge the sons they 

train ; 
But love, when driven, is only driven away : 
Thank God that lips tell not what hate might 

say. 

Of yonder home a child was once the pride, 
But floods of vileness whelmed her in their tide. 
Diseased, disfigured, source of grief and shame, 
She dwells there still, nor hears one word of 
blame. 

And there where mourners watch a form so 

white 
It scarcely veils the spirit's coming light, 
Their aching smiles travest with joy-like arts 
The throes of grief that rack their trembling 

hearts. 

Who lives not conscious of some inward thought 
Which out to outward life should not be 

brought? 
How many a soul must purchase all its joy 
With coin one test of ours could prove alloy! 

Earth owes its faith to men who will not share 
Distrust with him who now has none to bear. 



MIDNIGHT IN A CITY PARK. i8i 

No sighs of theirs give vent to inward strife, 
Lest weak confession give it voice and life. 

When comes a loss of fortune, honor, sway, 
When threatens death that hope alone can 

stay, 
When senile states presume they still have 

youth, — 
Oh, what could curse men worse than words of 

truth? 

The clerk, hard pressed, who holds the coffer's 

key, 
The scribe in debt who writes what none can see. 
The maid in want who fingers gem and dress, — 
We trust them all for thoughts that all repress. 

The forests flourish and the sweet flowers blow 
Because of soil that hides foul roots below; 
And all fair fruits of human life are grown 
Above dark moods and motives never shown. 

Ah, were they shown, did man not rule himself, 
The world were whelmed in murder, vice, and 

pelf; 
As vainly watchmen trod this dreamlike mist 
As might some weird, un waked somnambulist. 



l82 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

To wisdom's eyes all paths in life reveal 
Each man a sentinel of all men's weal, 
And often all their safety he must win 
By first suppressing his first wish within. 

Within himself when fierce the fight is waged, 
Oh, who can aid the purpose thus engaged! 
The soul, unheard, in darkness and alone. 
Can never share a contest all its own. 

None from another's practice gains in skill, 
Or grows in power of feeling, thought, or will; 
None with another goes to God in dreams 
To seek the strength that his lost strength 
redeems. 

What coward he, then, when the crisis nears 
Who cries for comrades, nor dare face his fears! 
No comrade's arm or mail can ever screen 
The coming conqueror in that strife unseen. 

All hail, dark Night, and darker Loneliness! 
What whim was this that brought my wrong 

distress? 
In life or death, knights crowned at heaven's 

high throne, 
Pass up through paths where each must move 

alone. 



IDEALS THAT WERE. 183 

Because, thus moving, many a brave soul 

bears 
What none who else might be imperilled shares, 
I hear the watchman's call, the midnight bell. 
The city sleeps in peace, and all is well. 



IDEALS THAT WERE. 

T HAD longed for months to meet him; 
* And then we sat, as of old, 
When our days of life were dawning, 

With skies all red and gold. 
But calmed was the thrill of his accent, 

And chilled the touch of his hand ; 
And under his lifted eyelid . 

No dear soul seemed to stand. 

We talked of business ventures, 

Of losses, and gains ahead. 
Of classmates, — a few successful. 

And some who had failed, or were dead. 
But it all appeared like a story 

One read in a book long ago, 
And recalls the reading to wonder 

How time could be wasted so. 



1 84 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

We talked about women and marriage 

And children, and how they grow, 
That this one or that gives promise, 

And others bring doubt, you know. 
But our talk was the talk of strangers; 

In touch with each other, thought I, 
No more than a stone with a seraph 

Asail in a cloud on high. 



And then, at last, we had parted; 

Nor had ventured one hint, forsooth, 
Of the light that gave heaven its glory, 

And earth its worth, in our youth. 
He had wrought for wealth, I had married; 

We had both earned board and bed ; 
But for what had we made a living 

When all we had lived for was dead? 



THE SAILOR'S CHOICE. 

TT E came to the deck at the call of the crew, 
■■■ * And had brought his violin; 
So we hushed, as we all were wont to do. 
And waited for him to begin. 



THE SAILOR'S CHOICE. 185 

A sailor-lad was he, rough in his mien, 
But the look on his face, as he laid 

His ear to the strings, I would rather have seen 
Than have heard any tune ever played. 

He stood like a picture painted in space, 
And paused ere the bow he drew ; 

And then, that wonderful look on his face, 
How deathly pale it grew! 

**I am waiting the music the same as you," 

He said in a soft low voice ; 
"But between what we would and we would not do 

We must make, at times, a choice." 

He lowered the bow with a sad sweet smile, 

*'I think that the only pride 
That I ever feel," he said, "is while 

I am playing with you at my side. 

"Yet I never seem playing for you alone, 

For joining the voice of your call 
Comes a voice more stern than a mortal's tone, 

And it calls for my life, my all. 

"It calls for my life. It draws my soul 

Far out of me, while I play, 
Till my body, deprived of my own control, 

Seems only a demon's prey. 



1 86 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

"He tells me then, with a frame bereft 

Of power to will or to think, 
That for ills like raine no cure is left 

But the kind that comes from drink. 

"You know my story, — too black to see. 

Too foul to paint or to tell, 
All proofs or threats are lost on me ; 

I rave as if earth were hell. 

"Last night my blood-stained hands were torn 
From the throat of my own best friend ; 

And now, by the Lord, my soul hath sworn 
That deeds like that shall end. 

"There is only one thing that brings the foe 

That works this wrong within. 
It is only music that maddens me so, — 

The music of this violin. 

"How once I scrimped with all I could earn 

Till it I , at last, possest ; 
And how, when absent, my arms will yearn 

To feel it again at my breast ! 

"I tell it my pains, and its echoes come back 
So sweet I thank God they are there. 

I tell it my joys, and the thrills that they lack 
My soul breathes in with the air. 



THE SAILOR'S CHOICE. 187 

"And now, no matter what fate I fear, 

No matter what ship I am in. 
What comrade has left me, a friend is near. 

While by me is this violin. 

"A friend! Oh, who but a fool would cling 
To a friend that can merely betray! 

And yet to think so dear a thing 
Could have led my spirit astray! " 

He spoke, and looked at it, then, on his 
knee, 

He broke it like one who raves. 
The crew, to rescue it, sprang, but he 

Had hurled it off to the waves. 



In the trough of the sea a moment it lay, 

And then came leaping back. 
Like a living foe, but was caught away 

And lost in the vessel's track. 

**I cared for it more than I think you knew" 

He said, with a sob in his voice, 
"But between what we would and we would 
not do. 

We must make, at times, a choice." 



1 88 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 

r^AY dawns, and just before my eye 
■*— ^ Two pathways fork the valley. 
One turns to where late dreamers lie, 

And one where soldiers rally. 
One slips by easy stages down ; 

One climbs hights wild and steril. 
One ends in luxuries of the town ; 

And one in pain and peril. 

Which path choose I? — How sweet below 

In dreamland to be lying, 
Could one but once forget to know 

That all are drugged and dying! 
Could one but see men led to wrong, 

And never care to right them, 
But leave their captors hale and strong, 

Because he dare not fight them! 

Which path choose I? — On yonder hight 

Full oft, all ease denying, 
One's only gain is conscious right, 

One's rest comes but from dying. 
But once a Christ there died to give 

His own good spirit to us; 
And good for which we, too, would live 

May work less in than through us. 



THE RELIGION OF RESCUE. 189 

Oh, who could fear or shun a strife 

Where all the wise are serving? 
Who would not risk his one mean life 

For thousands worth preserving? — 
The bugle calls the hill to storm. 

My body thrills ! — I use it 
As due a spirit's uniform 

Used best by those who lose it. 



THE RELIGION OF RESCUE. 

T'HE watch of the ship, ''Lord Gough," called 
i out 

Through the hurricane's howl, ''A wreck!" 
No shriek of the wind could have voiced that shout . 

It brought all hands to the deck. 

"In vain her crew their signal fly 

At half-mast" — sigh'd the mate; 
"For heaven alone, in a sea so high, 

Could save them now from their fate." 

"That heaven be ours! " cried the captain brave ; 

"Ay, rate me worse than a whelp, 
If, cowed by lashes of wind or of wave, 

I dare not row to their help!" 



I go PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

Yet who of his crew would volunteer? — 
Who risk their lives in the yawl ? — 

He looked where' he thought that a few might 
appear, 
And found he could choose from all. 



But wait! — On the mast of the floundering 
ship 

The flag no more could be seen. 
The ropes hung loose that his crew let slip ; 

For what could the lowered flag mean? 

Oh, could it have been but a false alarm? — 
They all of them held their breath. 

Could there be no need of an outstretched arm, 
Or of rowing that race with death ? 

The captain probed with his eye-glass then ; 

"Nay, water-logged do they lie; 
And, flying a flag or no flag, men, 

We rescue them now, or they die." 

He spoke, and his words, they rang like knell 

On the drum of the outward ear; 
But when on the inward soul they fell 

Not a tremor they woke of fear. 



THE RELIGION OF RESCUE. 191 

Then soon, as a coffin falls to a grave, 

The yawl sank down, but alack! 
Like fingers white the crests of the wave 

Were clutching and flinging it back. 

Then, whirled, as it were, in a drunkard's 
dance, 

It staggered, anon, and lunged. 
Then, tilted aside, like a hostile lance, 

At the hull of the wreck it plunged. 

Three times, in vain, that helpless yawl 
Toward the deck of the wreck was tost. 

Three times the wrecked, as it back would 
fall. 
Looked down with the look of the lost. 

Then shouts came snapping like whips the blast. 

The yawl to the boom had clung ; 
And, one by one, from the wreck, at last, 

Black forms like bales were flung. 

The last that leapt from the lone-left deck 
And called that the work was done. 

Gave "Cleopatra" as name of the wreck. 
And the captain as "Pendleton." 



192 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

**If you be the captain, " greeted him then, 
"In God's name, tell us, man, why 

You lowered your flag, as we hove to you, when 
You knew that you all would die?" 

"We lowered it because our yawls were lost. 

We could never have rowed to you ; 
And we feared that for you to come would cost 

Far more than to us was due." 

Then a low voice muttered, "When men would 
find 

Such a man as a man should be, — 
A man that dares to die for his kind, 

Then let them look to the sea. 

"Whatever your churches or priests may claim, 

When making their worldly rolls. 
Those made by God for heaven will name 

The men that have Christlike souls." 



AFTER THE LYNCHING. 

"\17AIT, wait! I beg you wait!" I heard. 

' ' "I know you, yes," — and at the word, 
My arm was clutched ; and, standing still, 
I waited there against my will. 



AFTER THE LYNCHING. 193 

Amid the darkness of the night, 
Two star-like eyes, a gown-cloud white, 
And, just above, like phantom rays, 
Gray, bony fingers met my gaze. 

What skeleton had sought my side? — 
"In God's name who are you?" I cried; 
And, wind-like came a ghostly hiss, 
"In God's name, let me tell you this. 

"Someone did something wrong, — a man. 
Some thought his color dark. He ran. 
We heard a tread, a hoot, a song. 
What of it? — We had done no wrong! 

"We never dreamed of their attack, 
For we, we were not very black; 
And should we flee, someone might say 
That we were guilty — better stay! 

"But they — O God, that hearts and minds 
Should rave like brutes that color blinds, 
Should feel no pity, weigh no proof. 
But vaunt the rule of horn and hoof! 

"They dragged my father from his bed. 
They stripped and whipped, and burned him dead. 
My mother, she bewailed his death. 
They choked and wrung from her her breath. 
13 



194 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

"I ran, they followed. Oh, the slough. 
The brush, the briar I stumbled through! 
And each time that I rose, I said : 
'My God, why was I not born dead?' 

*"0h, why should He have made me so 
That half the world must hound me ? Oh, 
Why curse the blackness of my skin. 
And not their souls all black within? 

"'Were all heaven's whiter, brighter fires 
Burned out before it made my sires? 
Ay, was there nothing left but soot 
For men to trample underfoot?' " 

"Too sad your lot," I sighed, "my child. 
I wonder not your words are wild ; 
But nay; not all men hound your race, 
Or deem it fills a useless place. 

"No place in life but fills a need. 
Who tills the soil, he starts the seed; 
And on his kind of toil below 
Depends the kind of fruits that grow." 

"That grow!" she moaned; "they never will, 
On sprouts that men so tramp and kill. 
God grant they never live to see 
The wilderness their world will be." 



AFTER THE LYNCHING. 195 

"God grant it, child," I said, and thought 
How apt the message was she brought. 
Her people might seem injured worse, 
But mine had borne the deeper curse. 

No pride in man can thrill the mind 
That treats, like soulless brutes, its kind ; 
No heavenly father seems to cheer 
Those who see not his children here. 

The only joy that love can know 
Dwells in our own hearts when aglow. 
The only hope that faith can feel 
Our spirits in themselves reveal. 

"Hark, hark!" she cried, and through the dark, 
As if the wind had whirled a spark — 
Oh, would it kindle soon a fire? — 
I saw her eyes flash past the briar. 

Then I, too, heard those coming feet 
And groans as of a wounded street. 
Then I, too, ran with trampings loud, 
And far from her I led that crowd. 

I circled round it, came behind ; 
And then I cried, "Oh, fools and blind! 
Who, who that once brute-force enthrone 
O'er others' rights can save their own? " 



196 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

RIGHTING A WRONG. 

"you think you -will go now? — that I must be 
I tired?— 

And go without John who brought us? — Why, 
why! — 
Sit down here, and tell me what is it that 
fired, 
And is trying to quench, too, that flash in 
your eye. 



Not pleasant, was John? — Did not wish you to 
dance ? — 
How strange! — Just now he was here to tell 
Of your triumphs; and pride, too, there was in 
his glance 
When he pointed you out as the ball-room's 
belle. 



Oh ! — only one man of whom you have heard 
That he wanted you not to dance with! — I 
see; 
And that man a stranger; but you, you pre- 
ferred 
The stranger to John — which he thought 
should not be? 



RIGHTING A WRONG. 197 

You say that women know best what men 
are? — 
And that men that are jealous are always 
unjust? — 
What of that? — It applies not to John, so far; 
For he has a head and a heart we all trust. 



Wait here, dear. You thought I was lonely; 
but no : 
Old age has pleasures that youth cannot own. 
There are persons and scenes crowd the memory 
so, 
'T is a wonder we ever feel wholly alone. 

You young people deem only you dance here. 
Why, dear, while you were there on the 
floor. 
My soul, as it has not for many a year, 

Has been dancing one dance that I dance ever- 
more. 



And dimly, yet clearly, I saw, too, to-night 
The man whom then I was dancing beside, 

My heart all aglow, and my hope so bright. 
For I, I had promised to be his bride. 



1 98 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

But into that ball-room, a stranger came. 

He looked like a prince as he followed my 
train. 
His whisper was warm, and his eyes were aflame; 

And I was a moth, and was young, and vain. 

Then he that I loved drew me off, and declared 
That this man was a knave, as he knew ; 

And I must not — but I was no child to be scared 
By one who was jealous. — I felt like you. 

It seemed the crown-time of my life, that night. 

I was queen of all hearts, the beauty, the belle. 
I sat on a throne in a halo of light ; 

But my lover — he lingered outside of my spell. 

He wrote then a letter. "What weakness!" I 
cried ; 
**To be punished, his heart should be placed 
on a rack." 
So all of his letters together I tied, 

And returned them, and waited. They never 
came back. 

He never came near me after that, dear; 

Merely dropped a brief line to say I was free. 
He thought I distrusted him, — that was clear; 

And love without faith, he felt could not be. 



RIGHTING A WRONG. 199 

The best hearts often, I think, are like his. 

They open their holy of holies within ; 
And that which profanes all, whatever it is, 

They cast out forever, as heaven would sin. 

And I ? — you have heard — it is not untrue, — 
That some love but once. Ever since that 
ball 

I have loved no other my whole life through ; 
And am only your old-maid-aunt, that is all. 

What? — tears? — Not for me? — You awoke me, 
in truth, 
From the sweetest of dreams. — Can you 
guess what one? — 
I am told that you look as I looked in my youth ; 
And this John is his image — yes, dear, his own 
son. 

He is coming again! — He is coming, you see! — 
And who was that stranger that talked to her 
so? — 
She thinks you disliked him as much as did 
she. 
Keep him off! Girls feel it so rude to say 
''No." 



200 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

Au revoir ! — and now I go back to my dream. 

Some souls have missions because misled. 
I must save her from dreaming how life might 
seem 

Were all that one cares for in life not dead. 



SHE WONDERS WHY. 

T T IS form was manly, his face was fair, 

^ * Of his honor all felt sure. 

Would she be his bride? — He lingered there; 

But "Nay," she said; he was "poor." 
She sits alone, and wonders why 
He should think with nothing a bride to buy. 

He flung to the war the form she had spurned ; 

He hurled it far in the strife. 
His brave assault had a victory earned ; 

But he, he had lost his life. 
She sits alone and wonders why 
A man who loved her should need to die. 

They brought him home, and buried him deep, 

In a soldier's raiment clad; 
And she, she came to see and weep; 

For his life had seemed so sad. 



THE WALL-FLOWER. 201 

She sits alone, and wonders why 
No lover comes as the years go by. 



THE WALL-FLOWER. 

r^UTSIDE the whirlpool of the ball, 
^-^ A stranded flower against the wall, 
She blusht to feel she stood too tall 

For aught about to hide. 
Why should a soul to earth be brought 
And framed within a form, she thought, 
That shows no beauty to be sought ? 

And deeply sad, she sighed. 

A strong man of the world was he, 

And round him danced what seemed a sea, 

And swept him off ; but not to be 

The end of all his care. 
So held in hands and tript in trains. 
He did not lightly wear the reins. 
But seemed a spirit dragged in chains ; 

Then saw her standing there. 

He stood beside her soon, and talked, 
And out the garden door they stalked, 
And where the boughs were thick they walked, 
Ah, how the hours had flown! 



202 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

She never heard a man before 
With such a stock of soulful lore, 
Nor thought to meet his equal more ; 
Nor felt again alone! 



HOMELESS. 

'' pERHAPS I failed in thrift, of old. 

■'■ It may serve me right to be hungry and cold ; 
But why should my babe, so frail, so fair, 
Be left with nothing to eat or wear? 
Come, come, my child, out there on the street 
Are beautiful homes with supper and heat ; 
And when they see to whom they can give. 
Oh, then they will help thee and let thee live." 

She opened the door. She walked the street. 

She held to the passer her babe so sweet. 

Up many a stately porch she crept; 

But closed to her call their doors were kept ; 

And some there were even that named police, 

Till she only dared to hold her peace. 

Oh, beautiful homes, with so much to give, 

Do none of you care that her child should live? 

She sank on a seat. They sat in a park. 
One locked its gates. The night grew dark. 



THE BLIZZARD. 203 

The air was chilly. The snow fell deep. 
There was no one to bid her babe not weep. 
There was no one to cover its form from the 

blast ; 
And yet, how quiet it slept at last! 
Oh, beautiful homes, keep what ye might give. 
None need care now that her child should live. 



THE BLIZZARD. 

\ 1 7 ITH a scowling sky blue-black from a blow, 
' " And the whur of a giant in skirts of snow, 
The blizzard came howling ahead. 
"O God," she cried," what a fearful sight! 
And my children are coming from school, to- 
night ! 
I must fetch them home," she said. 

She tramped in the snow, and battled the blast, 
And just had fainted, but saw, at last, 

The dear little pair that she sought. 
"Thank God, " she cried, and, with freezing tears 
That fell like pearls, while she freed her fears. 

To her breast the two she brought. 

The blizzard had gone, and the sun shone bright; 
But under a snow-shroud — 'oh so white! — 



204 PARALLELS AND PARABLES. 

The children and mother lay. 
Thank God, she was there with a kiss and a word ; 
The deepest prayer of her heart had been 
heard ; 

She had taken them home to stay. 



IN THE LIFE BEYOND. 

QO pale is the little cheek 

*^ And the still lips will not speak. 

Oh, where is the life I seek, 

My child, my child? 
Oh, why has the spirit flown 
Without me to lead it, alone, 
Out into the dark unknown, 

So wide, so wild? 

Who now when dreams grow deep 
Will watch at the gates of sleep. 
Or wipe these eyes when they weep 

At scenes unkind? 
Who now when wish and thought 
So yearn to be helpt or taught 
Will bring the boon they had sought, 

But could not find? 



IN THE LIFE BEYOND. 205 

Oh, surely love must care 
For child-life everywhere! 
Kind hands, they must be there, 

So soft, so fond! 
They must keep my child for me, 
Forever a child to be, 
Where forever a home I see 

In the life beyond. 



SUGGESTIONS FROM CHURCH, 
STATE, AND SOCIETY. 



207 



A HYMN FOR ALL RELIGIONS. 

PARTIAL CHORUSES. 

/^H Life that lives beyond desire 
^-^ In peace that makes the future blest, 
Through each new death, oh lift us higher, 
Till all shall with the Bhudda rest. 

Oh Mind that knows what all would know. 
Although Thyself be never known, 

Hear us whose thought would not forego 
What wise Confucius made his own. 

Oh King whose glories mortal saw 

When Moses near'd Mount Sinai's fires, 

Hear us who still regard thy law. 

And serve the Lord who saved our sires. 

Oh Leader who one prophet hath 
To guide the faithful soul to thee, 

Hear us who ne'er forsake the path 
Wherein Mohammed's form we see. 
14 209 



2IO CHURCH, STATE, AND SOCIETY 

Our Father from thy home above 
Thy call was heard and it sufficed, 

Hear us for him who proved thy love, 

Hear us whose faith hath found the Christ. 



FULL CHORUS. 

Oh Thou that over all must reign. 
We should Thy glorious throne profane, 
Did we not walk in his dear shade 
Whom Thou our light of life hast made. 
Oh save us through his truth and grace, 
Nor let the lightning of Thy face 
Strike those who follow in his train. 

RESPONSE. 

Not every man that names the name 
That is the Lord's can enter here; 

But only those whose inward aim 

Would do his will howe'er made clear. 

For naught can reach the Spirit's throne 

Save what in spirit spirits own. 



THE AMERICAN PIONEER. 211 

THE AMERICAN PIONEER. 1 

/^F all the world's grand heroes, none has won 
^-^ The right to be more honored or more dear 
Than he who, traveling toward the setting 
sun, 

Became our country's western pioneer. 
For strife that made our free land what it is 

Our debt is not to Pilgrim sires alone. 
This later sire, too, that each heir of his 

Might weal inherit, oft gave up his own. 

Think not for weakness that could not have 
wrung 

His due from rivals in his childhood's home, 
He turned from scenes that he was reared among. 

And chose in lone untrodden wilds to roam. 
The fledglings first to flap a restless wing 

Have calmed each mate that would their whir 
contest. 
Long ere, at last, they take the fateful spring 

That bears them off forever from the nest. 

iRead at the celebration of the hundredth anniver- 
sary of the founding, in 1803, of Potsdam, N. Y., and 
of St. Lawrence Academy, by Benjamin Raymond, 
Civil Engineer and County Judge. 



212 CHURCH, STATE, AND SOCIETY. 

And not for fame wrought he who moved away 

Where few coul^ note his deeds or shout his 
name. 
No throngs he drew to tempt him to display; 

No couriers flew his triumphs to proclaim. 
For years no sound his pride of self increased. 

He heard but echoes of his axe and gun, 
The night-howl of the wolves, or, when they 
ceased. 

The singing of the birds to greet the sun. 

And not for coin he left the town's close ranks 

That, bartering, beat him in tight-fisted 
strife, — 
Their plants all factories, their granaries banks, 

Their atmosphere but that of man-made life. 
His mood preferred God's primitive exchange 

Where well tilled grain in grain gives back 
returns ; 
Nor did he ever deem it wrong or strange 

That rest enjoys no more than effort earns. 

Nor fled he like some prodigal, to please 
Himself, and thus a father's purpose foil. 

No seeker for a life of selfish ease 

Would so enroll with volunteers of toil. 



THE AMERICAN PIONEER. 213 

He fought the wild beasts backward through the 
wood; 
To pave the swamp, he pried the ledges down; 
Grubbed roots to clear the field for others' 
food; 
Felled trees with which his followers built the 
town. 



He went as if some call within the soul 

Had come to urge him toward the untamed 
wild, — 
A call that all his life-work should control, 

A father's call, of whom he seemed a child. 
He must have felt that earth's unconscious 
growth 
Could flower alone in conscious deeds of man, 
And where man wrought with nature, there that 
both 
Were working to fulfill a God-formed plan. 

His body served the soil, but from the skies 
He breathed the spirit in with which he 
wrought. 
In them he saw fair homes and cities rise ; 

No facts could bury faith that lived in 
thought. 



214 CHURCH, STATE, AND SOCIETY, 

His life was hard, yet seemed a rare romance, 
The sense in thrall, the soul at liberty; 

And, winged beyond his age in its advance, 
What he saw then, we now term prophecy. 

Oh, would his children in this age were true 

To that which they inherit from the past ! 
Would they could look beyond each present view 

Up through the clouds and forward through 
the blast ! 
Still waits for us that city which our sires 

Saw looming in the realm of their ideal ; 
Still needs the world the spirit that aspires 

To lead where earth is new and heaven seems 
real. 



GOD BLESS AMERICA. 

f^ OD bless America, and still 
^-^ Our nation's guardian be, 
As when, of old, to work thy will, 

Our fathers made it free. 
We thank thee for our fertile fields, 

For mines our high hills dome ; 
But more for kindly rule that yields 

Its due to every home. 



GOD BLESS AMERICA. 215 

Oh, never, where brute-force would fight 

The ways humane it hates, 
Could aught resist it like the might 
United to uphold the right 

In these United States. 



God bless "the Stars and Stripes" above 

The State-house, court, and school. 
It signals there the sway we love, 

The right of thought to rule. 
Let others boast a flag that waves 

In triumph where men kill, 
We prize our own as one that saves 

From wrong that war would still, — 
A symbol of just laws that lead 

To life that peace creates. 
While men to men fair play concede, 
And States lack neither help nor heed 

That are United States. 

God bless the world by blessing here 

The land of equal rights. 
The man who deems each man his peer 

No other's nation slights. 
Ay, where no earthly lords enthrall 

Through faith in sword or throne. 



2i6 CHURCH, STATE, AND SOCIETY. 

In God we trust by trusting all 
In whom His traits are shown. 

The largest hope since time began, 
For which the whole world waits, 

Is that for which our statesmen plan, — 

The coming Parliament of Man, 
The world's United States. 



TO THE WIFE OF A PUBLIC MAN 

AS REPORTED BY A MIND-READER. 

Y^OU point toward us your finger. 
* We press it, if we choose; 
But, oh, we must not linger 
Your patience to abuse! 

We dare your face to look at ; 

But us you scarcely see. 
Big fish for you to hook at 

Are not such fry as we. 

Yet not to pay this visit 
Had seemed for us a slight. 

It is not easy — is it? — 
For you to be polite. 



TO THE WIFE OF A PUBLIC MAN. 217 

Of course, we know your reason; 

It is so hard to drop, 
Or in or out the season, 

The manners of the shop, — 



The business-ways that culture 
New meanness, day by day, — 

The swaggering of the vulture, 
The squirming of its prey. 



Did you not show your heart set 
On those with gold to spend. 

You might then to your smart-set 
Appear some poor man's friend. 



You think, to be successful. 
With snobs you ought to score; 

Yet those with purses less full, 
They number many more. 



They vote the world's opinion ; 

And when they see your mien. 
Not one would seem a minion 

That you may seem a queen. 



2l8 CHURCH, STATE, AND SOCIETY. 

Not one thing can you boast of 
That they would not dispute, 

Save when you make the most of 
What makes you most a brute. 



Thank God, ours is a nation 
That his own test controls ; 

Nor bows before high station 
When held by low-lived souls. 



We deem it merely human 
To not put under ban 

The deference due each woman, 
The honor due each man. 



But you — from us you differ, 
And does your husband, too?- 

Or only for your sniffer 
Must we bid him adieu? 



When us he seeks applause of 
And bids you join his trick, 

Why spoil the show because of 
Your mule-like itch to kick? 



HER HAUGHTINESS. 

We knew your record shady, 
But if that thriftless cot 

Had turned you out a lady, 
All this had been forgot. 

But now — how deeds expose us! — • 
Your vulgar strain is real. 

Your overbearing shows us 
Your underbred ideal. 



219 



HER HAUGHTINESS. 

C HE stands erect and overlooks 

*^ Those she would make look up to her; 

And, scepter-like, her straight hand brooks 

A touch, but not a hand-shake, sir. 
She walks, and clearance for her feet 

Expects from all men not profane. 
No brute so trod a field of wheat 

To bend and break, not thresh, the grain. 

The poor and weak — oh, not to them 
She turns a heedful eye or ear! 

Could rags of theirs offset a gem? 
Or feeble voices lend a cheer? 



220 CHURCH, STATE, AND SOCIETY. 

Yet if a great man you — aha ! — • 

Or wealth or honor can confer, 
No Moses tapping Meribah 

Could slake conceit's hot thirst like her. 

And would you question how was won 

The high regard she claims from earth? 
Think not she feels that service done 

For manhood measures manhood's worth. 
Not she, nor one of all her race, 

So far as those who know can tell, 
Has ever yet shown any trace 

Of even wishing others well. 

I say this not because no white 

Became her mother but the shroud's; — 
A flower may blossom, sweet and bright, 

Though grown in mire where hang but clouds ; 
And not because, to dig for pelf, 

Her father soiled both soul and hand ; — 
Each spirit by and in itself. 

Insures what heaven should bless or brand. 

I blame no souls because of ills 
Wrought by another's deed alone. 

I blame them but when their own wills 
Have made the deed I blame their own. 



HER HAUGHTINESS. 221 

I blame the beauty in her face, 

The beacon-flashes in her eye, 
The faultless form, the luring grace, 

All made by her a living lie. 

A living lie ! — In realms of right 

With no such charms is wrong indued ; 
All beauty is the halo bright, 

The coming glow of God and good. 
What foe to worth that rules above 

Sent forth, to serve but greed and pelf. 
This outward messenger of love 

With inward mission but for self? 

In her the smile that brings life cheer. 

The tone that faith can understand, 
The phrase that makes the doubtful clear. 

The clasp that plights the helping hand, 
The sympathies that zest infuse. 

The comradeships that souls ally. 
Her heart has never thrilled to use. 

Her head has never planned to try. 

Alas, to know what life can be. 

And then to know what her life is! — 

That, such a thing to pity, she 
Should dream of her priorities! 



22 2 CHURCH, STATE, AND SOCIETY. 

I doubt if one could find a soul 

Whose love for her would be avowed ; 

And yet, when playing such a role, 

Good God ! — to think she can be proud ! 



THE SOCIETY LEADER. 

IV] O princess merely born to reign 

^ Could boast a more desired domain, — 

More loyal followers in her train, 

For she rules head and heart. 
To vie with her, the rolling drum. 
The bugle call would both be dumb. 
They could not bid such homage come 

Or such repute impart. 

And not for naught do men, I ween. 

Like bees that swarm, make one their queen, 

And, actor-like in every scene, 

Yield her the leading role. 
For if that r61e make true and real 
The hope that heeds a high ideal, 
What heaven-sent goddess could reveal 

More good to bless the soul? 



THE SOCIETY LEADER. 223 

But if her social touch infest 

The town with some contagious pest, 

Whose nights of fever know no rest, 

Nor days, in all the seven, 
Her hand may guide where souls but weep. 
Not less for loss of dreams in sleep 
Than loss of waking dreams that keep 

The spirit near to heaven. 

And if she lure to seek success 

Through debt-bought houses, motors, dress, 

And all that drugs to thoughtlessness 

The thought that minds would shirk, 
Be dupes beguiled to fling away 
The hard-earned token-coin of pay, 
Dishonoring, in the craze of play, 

The law that blesses work, — 

If thus to ill her lead incline, 
Deluded throngs that push and pine 
To get inside her circle's line 

Might better seek a herse. 
No soul that once becomes the prey 
Of her whose form exerts the sway 
Of beauty but to lead astray 

Could find a devil worse. 



LOVE AND LIFE. 



IS 225 



LOVE AND LIFE. 

I 

I IFE is a mystery, mystery bound. 

*-' Above or about us no rest is found. 

Our past is a dream of the soul's dim home; 

Our future a scheme for the mist and the foam. 

The winds drive us on ; we shudder but steer ; 

We tack for safety, we drift in fear; 

We cry for help and a helper, but none 

Will answer our cry; we struggle alone. 

If our landing, indeed, were near some light 

To signal the harbor were now in sight. 

Be alert, my soul, nor ever a ray 

Let gleam unused when the gloom gives way. 

No doubt or danger can ever dispense 

With a sigh or a sign for spirit or sense. 



II 



Ah, whither do lines of the long course tend, 
And when will the task of tracking them end ? 
227 



228 LOVE AND LIFE. 

No voice can tell us. No other can show 
What no one except ourselves can know. 

On the way to the grave, 

Though, over the wave, 
Loom many a shore past many a shoal, 
But one port waits for any one soul. 

By himself alone 

He must make his quest 
For a home to own 

In the land of the best, 

III. 

What order but this, 

At the world's first dawn, 
Made clear the abyss 

Through the dark withdrawn? 
Off flew on their missions 

The systems and stars. 
To waiting fruitions 

That time still bars ; 
And high rose the mountains; 

And broad reacht the plains; 
And up burst the fountains ; 

And down fell the rains ; 



1 



LOVE AND LIFE. 229 

And, water' d between, 
Came on earth that was green; 
And, fragrant 
And beautiful, 

Herbage and flower; 
And, vagrant 
Or dutiful, 

Manhood, a power, 
Whose glory 
And story- 
Is always this, — 
That the spirit of life 
Is a spirit of strife; 
And, whatever the thing we may gain or miss, 
The end of it all is to lie like a knight 
Whose rest is the weariness won in a fight. 
The world whirls us on, and, in reason or rage, 
We bustle and jostle from childhood to age. 



IV. 



Lo, feebly rises 
A voice that wails, 

As life surprises 
And lifts the veils 
From the eyes of a babe that little prizes 



230 LOVE AND LIFE, 



1 



An unsought birth 
In a lone chill earth 
Where it weeps and wonders what life is worth ! 
The eyes draw back from the points of the light 

That glance from a world that is all in a glitter. 
The cheeks to mysteries huge look fright. 

The swaddling chafes and the cups are bitter. 
The small hands clutch for motes of the air, 

For plaits of the dress, for folds of the bed; 
But the marvels move and mingle and tear, 

Redoubled by every shred. 
Soon, limbs that balance the tottering brain 
Fall down in the pathway damp with the rain; 
Or fly with shrieks from the boisterous joys, — 
The barking and bounding of dogs and boys, 
And wheels incessantly grinding out noise. 
And if, indeed, the flowers be sweet, 
The garden is close to the long, wide street, 
And all the big houses, and who can they be 
The smileless people so stem to see? 



V. 



The lone little being, bewildered by needs 
And thoughts it can speak not, or nobody heeds, 
Ah, where can it find any respite or rest, 
Till cradled, anon, on its mother's breast, 



LOVE AND LIFE. 231 

Its faith a feeling by none withstood ; 

Its hope that of saints in God and in good ; 

And its love, ah would none ever could 

roam 
From the love of the child in the joy of the 
home 

Where none seem alone, 

But a part of life's whole, 
Whom love, when shown, 
Hath joined in soul. 



VI. 



Behold, at the heart's least token, 

The babe and the mother, 
Whose lives apart had broken, 
At one with each other ! 
But, ah, sweet babe, if thy mother incline 
To welcome thy fears 
With words that direct toward the work of the 
years 
More voiced for her nature than thine. 
The first of earth's parents could no more 

undo 
Than the last of their kind, through self-seeking 
too, 
Who tamper with nature's design. 



232 LOVE AND LIFE. 

VII. 

What a spirit earth needs in the mother ! 

Who else can inspire 
To a life to be loved by another 

The future's desire? 
The tender plant that springs to the air 

From the small frail urn of youth 
Is trained, if at all, by a woman's care 

For the flowering and fruitage of truth. 
Each home is an Eden that owns an Eve 
Whose deeds make all life joy or grieve. 

What a work to be done by the mother, 

Ere, out from the home, 
To be shadowed and shaped by another, 

The child must roam; 
Ere battered and tattered by earth. 

No matter how loath, 
With a push that is his by birth, 

An impulse of growth, 
He is warring to win or to lose in the strife 
Where the stoutest of all must battle for life, 

VIII. 

God shield his frame 
And straighten his aim; 



LOVE AND LIFE. 233 

For no help else, or early or late, 

Can ward his form in the war with fate ; 

No help ward those who must weep for one 

Who fell as the battle had just begun; 

Whom life had afforded not one chance 

To tender his aid in the world's advance. 

Oh, if there be laws that faith can trust. 

High laws that righten all things unjust, 

What spheres for dreaming and doing must lie 

In airs not domed by a mortal sky ! 

What fulness of living must life contain 

Where losing one's life on earth seems gain! 

Well might it seem so, if a soul no more 

Should need to struggle, bruised and sore, — 

By himself alone 

To make his quest 
For a home to own 

In the land of the best. 



IX. 



What joy does the beU 
Of the school foretell 
To the child who first, with book and slate. 
And bounding step for his fancied fate. 



234 



LOVE AND LIFE. 



Goes out from home, whose dear eyes yearn, 
Out into the world with a world to learn! 

Alas for the feet that trip through the street ! 
Those throngs before 
The school-house door 
Are a hostile host to meet. 
Those unknown quizzical girls and boys 
Have made the eye 
So keen, grow shy; 
And a blush takes the place 
Of the flush on the face 
That shrinks from the hoped-for joys; 
And sad to the stranger and drear and dim 
Seems a world of pleasure that knows not 
him. 



What zest does the sport 

Of the school import 
Into life, as its ways unfold ! 
As the child in his turn grows bold ; 
And, with tests that have made his own soul 

stout. 
Assails his fellows their fears to rout ! 
Alas for his elders' rebukes and sighs! 



LOVE AND LIFE. 235 

His mind is away 

At play all day, 
Nor cares for a school-room prize. 
But if a spirit of love and of zeal 

In others inspire him 

Through toils that tire him, 

What nobler throne 

Could their spirits own, 
What realm more royal in weal ! 
The autocrat's pride in his haughtier train 
The miser's clutch for the glut of his gain, 

Are as shade to the light. 
Are as hell to a heaven, compared to their lot 

Though humble and poor, whose lives incite 
And train men's thinking that else were not. 



XL 



What a test of all life 

Is the school-time strife! 
Oh, who is he that shall win life's prize? — 
He may be the least in his comrades' eyes. 
For the compass that saves when mysteries 

throng 
Would better be sensitive first than strong. 
The triumph of sinew and speed are brief; 



236 LOVE AND LIFE. 

For the harbor sought is dim and far, 

Past many a. bar, 
And many a well hid reef. 
From many a moon-lit bay men bless 

Bright beacons beck 

Toward death and wreck, 
And many are winds that rise and roar 

To drive ashore. 
Ah me, the pilots of sure success 
Sail not at random, nor steer by guess. 
The voyage of life is a voyage for naught, 
If souls keep not to one thing sought. 
And never forget to give it their thought. 

XII. 



The new has claims 

That the old has not. 
How much for games 

Is the home forgot! 
There are sports for green and river and hall, 
Kite and see-saw, fishing and ball, 
Clubs and parties, music and fun, 
Books to study and slight and shun, 
And fresh little thoughts in tones that tinkle, 
As dance the dimples that round them wrinkle, 



LOVE AND LIFE. 237 

More dear to refresh the soul with delight 
Than all of their elders' reason and right. 
For the healthful, heart ful blush 

Of youth's fair spring-time's flower and fruit, 
Is never the autumn's hectic flush 

Of a life that fades and dies at the root. 

XIII. 

Oh, where are the minds that pair 

With those that their own have outgrown, 
Nor long for another to share 

In moods at one with their own? 
How oft a prize may be won, 

How oft the applause of the throng, 
Yet to him that hears the "Well done," 

The whole world yet seems wrong! 
He knows not why till a face 

With eyes that the soul shines through, 
Forsakes all others, to trace 

And find his own that withdrew; 
Till feelings as timid as his, 

Yet yearning for love, and alone, 
Unveil all the mysteries 

That hide their soul from his own. 
Oh, where is the peace on earth. 

In which more peace can blend, 



238 LOVE AND LIFE. 

Or pride in a loftier sense of worth, 
Than follows the love of the friend? 

Not all the doubts of the creeds 
Can shake their faith who find 

No selfishness back of the deeds 
Of one pure sensitive mind. 

They are not alone, 
But a part of life's whole, 

Whom love, when shown, 
Hath joined in soul. 

XIV. 

The friends that in closeted hours confess 
The faith so dear 

That both possess, 
When others are near, 
Abide contented not to reveal, 
But merely to feel. 
In walking 
Or talking, 
That some one is nigh 
With a kindling eye ; 
And some one exults at their well earned pride. 
To tattle of love were suicide. 
No trumpet or drumming 
Proclaims the coming 



LOVE AND LIFE. 239 

Of God on high to a spirit on earth. 

Then wherefore of love, if it have any worth? 

XV. 

Dear vows, they are meant when made. 

Of friendship forever to last ; 
But there, where the mom's bright beams were 

cast 

On a world so fair 
That all seemed like a dream of an Eden rare, 
Can the rays of the sun as it sets bring shade. 

But even the night 

Holds the moon's mild Hght; 
And whenever the sun return again. 

The fields that flame 

To its touch are the same ; 
And, whenever the loved return, ah, then. 

For the soul there are joys, 

Tho' the girls and the boys 
Gaze out through the guises of women and men. 

XVI. 

How soon the tints of morn fade away, 
And the sun is clouded, and skies are gray! 
Whatever the promise of rest or of toil, 
There never can be an earthly soil, 



240 LOVE AND LIFE, 

But flood and earthquake tear; 

There never can be an earthly air, 

But wind and lightning rend. 

Vain then to think of an earthly friend 

Whose love and help can last ! 

For all, whenever their day be past, 

The air they breathe, the soil they tread 

Will close in a coffin and leave them dead ; 
And he that sought 
For the strength they brought 

By himself alone 

Must make his quest 
For a home to own 

In the land of the best. 

XVII. 

There comes a time that none can escape, 
When each for himself a choice must make, 
Must turn to a path that is right or is wrong, 
And the path that he takes is a path life-long. 
What though some weak, mild memory know 
Not the hour nor the day that tested it so? 
What though some shrink from the woes before 
With a shock that is never forgotten more ? — 
All noted their paths, and thought of the change 
Till nothing that came seem'd wholly strange ; 



LOVE AND LIFE. 241 

And though there is little for curses or hymns 

In a thought of the earth or the skies, 
Our wishes and ways are heirs of our whims, 

And our footsteps follow our eyes. 
Great crimes can never their souls allure, 
Who have kept their moods and memories pure, 

And so I know, 
That the souls that hold to the right with ease. 
Have fought their vices before they fall. 
The time to stop sinning 
Is ere its beginning. 
Allow' d to grow. 
The germs of guilt, like those of disease, 
Prove deadly because they seem so small. 

XVIII. 

How much we need this lesson, alas! 
We sally forth : we mix with the mass : 
We meet a world, too willing to show 
How little about the world we know. 

When only a boy. 
To know a little is all our joy. 

But alas, for a man, 
His trials begin as Adam's began ! 
Like him, we all would be gods, and boast 
Of knowledge and power to the uttermost. 
16 



242 LOVE AND LIFE. 

When comes the day- 
Revealing how small 
Is the sphere that life has allotted us all, 

We choose a way 
To rise or to fall ; 

We accept from above, 

And use with love 

Our partial dower, 
And learn to master and make it a power; 

Or we boast of what 

Our souls have not, 
And turn from the frank, fair ways of truth 
To the ways that avoid it, and think, forsooth, 
That nothing can shatter a sham defense 
That hides our hollowness in pretense. 

XIX. 



Alas, if the world affect one so. 
How suddenly old the young may grow! 
No longer they seek for the right, too vain 
To ask it, and make their ignorance plain. 
No longer they struggle for love that lends 
No more than frailty borrows from friends. 
No longer they live in the light, but trust 
Disguises that doom them to garbs of dust. 



LOVE AND LIFE. 243 

Oh earth, tho' royal the robes you bring, 
They stifle the spirit to which they cHng! 
For none are free, when the truth shines bright, 
Who would fly or hide themselves from sight. 

They are free alone. 
Who dare to hold their souls to the light. 
And have their innermost motives known. 



XX. 



What joys are as great, since the world began. 
As the joy of the soul whose depths impart 
The LOVE OP THE LOVER that opens the 
heart 
Of the man to the maid and the maid to the man ! 
The cup of life that was hollow and dry 
Is thrilling and filling 
And sparkling and spilling. 
Live high ! is the cry ; 
Live high ! as the glasses clash and jingle, 
And currents of life in them mingle and tingle. 
The spirit within has flooded each brim, 
And eyes grow dizzy and dazed and dim. 
Both drink till they reel, and around and around 
The world goes whirling. Ah, never so bright 
Was ever the world ! — Their spirits have found 



244 LOVE AND LIFE. 

The realm of the stars, and at last caught sight 
Past the sparks that are flying, the source of all 
light. 

They are not alone, 

But a part of life's whole 
Whom love, when shown, 
Hath joined in soul. 

XXI. 



There dawns, transfiguring earth and skies, 
A day in the light of which faith may be sure 
What power makes all life be and endure. 
It comes, when, filling with hope, v/e rise 

Redeemed in soul by the Spirit of Truth ; 
And it comes with assent that glorifies 
A soul that has won the love of its youth. 
Ah, never the trills 
Of the birds were half so thrillingly sweet; 

Nor ever the rills 
Rolled on so clear at the feet. 

The leaves are all flowers, 
And crystal all showers. 
Through the clouds the green hills loom, as grand 
As the nearing shores of a spirit-land; 



UOVE AND LIFE. 245 

And the lights of the stars gleam down thro' a 

soul 
That heaves like a wave of the infinite whole. 
We float and fuse in the fragrant air ; 
We fade from ourselves ; we die to all care. 
Ay, she that is ours in that moment of bliss 
Brings all immortality, worth not this. 
Nay, nay, we have gain'd the life above. 
Who dares to deny it to our first love? 
We have, we have eternity! — Yet 
The brightest of suns may rise to set. 
How blest are they who never find out 
How earthly love, like its home, shifts about! 

XXII. 



Romance is a dream 
That the wise esteem. 
For none whom it never possest 
Were ever the bravest or best. 
The helpers that bend to all need 
Are sensitive first to heed 

The calls that are nearest. 
The loving all learn the art 
Of opening mind and heart 

With those that are dearest. 



246 LOVE AND LIFE. 

And, oh, wherever two souls agree 
With every mood transparent within, 

How pure they grow to the eyes that see, 
How empty themselves of sin ! 

XXIII. 

The spirit of love is far too rare 
For ever deceit or doubt to dare, — 
A hallow' d spirit whom awed delight 
Must ever worship in robes of white. 
Too oft by a touch that never was meant 
The veil of its holy of holies is rent ; 
Too oft from a heedless impious tone 

Love's glory has flown. 
The souls that together lived in light. 
They weep apart through the long, long night. 

XXIV. 

Where is hell? Ah me, there is life on earth 
Torn away from all it is worth. 
Things are severed by nature allied : 
Wish and all of its wants divide. 
Who but the loving are dupes of hate ? 
Who but the faithful are foiled by fate? 
Who but the seekers of truth can find 
Half of the falsehood framed for the mind ? 



LOVE AND LIFE. 247 

Who but those with ideals fair 
Deal with a real life hard to bear? 
True to an instinct cheating all trust, 
Flapping white wings that raise but the dust, 
Stuck like stones in the mire of the earth, 
What for our souls are the bright stars worth ! 

XXV. 

Love is the flame of a fire divine 

Lit and fanned on an earthly shrine. 

Heaven and earth both claim it their own. 

Why should either let it alone ? 

Why should the earth not strive to show 

That all of its traits belong below ? 

Why should the heaven be loathe to try 

To prove that they all belong on high ? 

For the most of us men, betwixt the two. 

The only things that are left to do 

Are to grieve that the one has lowered our love, 

Or to mourn that the other has borne it above. 

Whichever life's plan. 

It leaves the man 

By himself alone 

To make his quest 
For a home to own 

In the land of the best. 



248 LOVE AND LIFE. 

XXVI. 

One seeks not to rhyme 

An excuse for a crime, 
Who speaks but a truth that is true in all time, 

And says that the art 

Of breaking the heart 
Is not confined to one sex at the start. 

Who are they that dance 

With our early romance, 
Alluring us on to love with a glance? 

There are girls who decoy 

The more modest boy. 
Whose faith they entrap to treat like a toy. 

Who are they that start 
Their hand for our heart, 

Then fling down the mitten to see how we smart ? 
They are maids who propose 
That we love as do those 

Who have flirted their limit of love to a close. 

Who the most are adverse 
To a man with no purse. 
And smile if we think with no heart he is worse? 



LOVE AND LIFE. 249 

They are matrons who trade 
The soul of the maid, 
And the bride deem best who has been best paid. 

Who are they that sigh 

As we ask of them "Why?" 
"There is nothing like learning. You learn by 
and-by" 

They are women whose flings 

At the sacredest things 
Have poisoned all life in its life-giving springs. 

XXVII. 

Ah me, is it wisdom that makes men say 

That feeling to frankness should never give way ? 

It surely is better to trust our own soul 

And be true to ourselves than to others' control. 

In love it is better to live while we live, 

Than to wait till our ghost has nothing to give ; 

While all that is in us is yearning to band. 

Give a heart for acceptance as well as a hand. 

Love, rarest of passions, with burnings untold, 

Refines all the being to turn out its gold. 

One sound of their kindling, wrong hears as a 

knell. 
And sinks from that heaven as far as to hell. 



250 



LOVE AND LIFE. 



He is curst who would clog with caution's alloy 
What strengthens our virtue or sweetens our 

joy, 

Who would chill into calmness what flows from 

the heart 
Till it show but the ice-like sparkle of art. 

XXVIII. 

Alas, the spirit, aspiring much, 
May find its vision flit at a touch ! 
What right has a mortal here to control 
Another in soul? — 
No more than a fiend, when starting to clutch, 
And drag another to dwell 

In its hell !— 
Yet oh, a fiend too 

Might deem it sweet 
To know of a soul to his own soul true ; 

And if their lips were to meet, 
I think in the swoon that followed that kiss. 
They might die to wrong, and awake in bliss. 

XXIX. 

How slightly the long years change our life ! 
We broke for a look and a whisper of strife ; 



LOVE AND LIFE. 251 

We thought that the seasons the past would 

screen : 
The winters were chill, but the spring was green. 

We call'd up our passion and pride in their 

might ; 
But others we sought for, brought no delight. 
We push'd through the city: we stroll'd through 

the park: 
One spake in the silence ; one moved in the dark. 

We dream'd we could mould our being to stone: 
Our heart became cold, and we wandered alone. 
God made us for life ; a statue we stood. 
The surface felt smooth, and the world called us 
good. 

But, anon, did the marble-like mien convulse. 
The heart beat strongly, and warm flow the 

pulse, 
The dull ear listen, the glaring eye see, 
Oh love, that forgives, God's love is in thee! 

XXX. 

Behold, storm-toss'd in the night, 
The soul desponding hears. 
Like the fiat of God at creation, 

The fiat of love, "Let there be light!" 



252 LOVE AND LIFE. 

And the air around one clears, 

And a radiant face appears, 
Like a sun, and with it a revelation 

Of beauty and worth 

In heaven and earth. 
Were they ever before so bright? 
Was there ever such glory that burst from 

gloom 
As the LOVE OF THE WEDDED PAIR, bride and 

groom? 

They are not alone 
But a part of life's whole, 

Whom love when shown. 
Hath joined in soul. 

XXXI. 

Now, over the will that slept 

And dreamt of the guard it kept, 

There steals the sweetest of powers to possess, 

So like to the beauty of Holiness, 

That ever, to souls that awake, it appeals 

Like a vision that heaven itself reveals. 

Is it something new or something old? 

How can it be new and faith so bold? 

How can it be old, and hope not cold? 



LOVE AND LIFE. 253 

Or can it be both? — so dull to the good, 
Our souls wait long to learn what they should : 
There is memory far more real than sight ; 
And a state immortal where age brings might. 

XXXII. 

An eye, when seeing 
The sphere of being. 
May look out through the senses, or else look in. 
But looks each way, toward a different goal, 
Toward hell through senses and heaven through 
soul. 
Who searches without and not within, 
He thinks the good far off that is near ; 
And sees no heaven tho' heaven be here. 
If that which he worship be worldly pelf, 
Oh, he knows not 
What souls have got 
Whose God is the God of the inward self. 

Oh, he knows not 
Why such as they care never a jot. 

That he finds fault 
With the one that they so love and trust. 
He may be just, 
But judges by sight. 
The things that are seen may all be white. 
One's own is the sugar; the others' are salt. 



2 54 LOVE AND LIFE. 

XXXIII. 

But who can trace 

What is under a face? 

Does a quiet mien 

Tell of hope serene 
From a spirit withdrawn, through inward grace, 
To dwell in a realm where is no distress? 

Or is it the stare 

Of one dead to care, 
Since dead to all but to selfishness? — 
The brightest of glances, — oh trust it never! — 
May flash from a passion to scorch forever. 

Light brightens the sky- 
When a dawn is nigh, 
Or when a volcano. — Some women, once wed, 
Drop the smile from their face with the veil they 

have shed. 
Some men are suitors who offer their hands 

Like the opening palms 
Of beggars when kneeling and asking for alms; 

But the one that pays heed 

They clutch in their greed. 
Turning fingers to fists and prayers to com- 
mands. 
What need of disguise when a prey is secure, 
And divorce is disgrace in society pure? — 



LOVE AND LIFE. 255 

Soon, bird-like, flitting from homes unblest. 
Their singing is all outside of their nest. 



XXXIV. 

What serpent is this 

That would whisper and hiss 

The damning advice 

Of the first Paradise, — 
That those who would equal the lords of creation 
Must mount through force to a lordlier station? 
True love forever fulfils the ideal 
Of faith, that in loving, can love to kneel. 
Ah me, what danger and doom may lurk. 
Ye daughters of Eve, in a scheme that would 
wrest 

From hearts that would give it, 

Would ye but live it, 
A sovereignty already possest! 
Oh, how can a mortal dare to touch 
And tarnish and bruise with an impious clutch 
The finish of all creation's work. 

Ere the hand of love 

Was lifted above? 
Oh, how can a spirit ever be proud 
Of an ermine that fits it no more than a shroud ?— 



256 LOVE AND LIFE. 

Of beauty that all is only a mask, 
A label for death-drugs hid in a flask? — 
Of sympathy waived for sharpness of eye? — 
Of sweetness, for weakness that wins with 
He? 



XXXV. 

Far better than bodies that rot before 

The breath has left them, and hold no more, 

In the haunted hell that is glassed by their 

eyes, 
A charm to inspire, a thought to make wise, — 
Far better than these, the face as white 
As ashes where dead fires drop their light ; 
Far better the eyes, all dim and dry, 
But blind as one's own that can only cry; 
Far better the crape and the veils that fall ; 
Far better the living room turned to a pall. 
All these, whatever the future may give. 
Have proved that love has a right to live. 



Though all alone 
One make his quest 

For a home to own 
In the land of the best. 



LOVE AND LIFE. 257 

XXXVI. 

Oh why do we sever, and bound to the fray, 
And spurn contentment and court dismay! 
We buckle in pleasure ; we buckle on pain ; 
We tighten the sinews that tingle and strain ; 
We wrench at the nerve's frail fibers until 
We have snapped the tenderest cord with our 

skill, 
Till no matter what may touch the strings 
No note of harmony longer rings. 
We are off in the dark, down, down for boons 
Where never come suns, where never come 

moons. 
Nay, that is not half of the woe, not half; 
We lie to our nature; we twit and we laugh; 

We dare 
To jeer of a love that was ours, 
We dare, yet there 
Through thorns and tares are living the flowers ! 

XXXVII. 

Unhelpt by any, what power can save 
The lonely spirit that earth would enslave? 

Aface that test 
That ever awaits to waylay the best, 
Shall one, when the world 



258 LOVE AND LIFE. 

Asserts control, 
Forget the soul? 
With every flag of a high cause furl'd 
Give up his fight for virtue and truth, 
And become a man of the world, forsooth? — 
Ay, ay, a coward, who cringed and bow'd. 
And has grown content to court the crowd? — 
A mountebank who, in storm or calm. 
Turns up or down his willing palm 
For a pittance from snobs that he thinks to 

please 
With a sneer for those and a smile for these? 



XXXVIII. 

Full many are paths where life can guide us. 
Whichever we take from some they divide us. 
Wherever we go, and follow men not. 
No slight of their leading is ever forgot ; 

The best of our deeds is quoted as bad ; 
Once John seem'd a devil, and Jesus a sot. 

Our toil — what of it? — is lonely and sad. 
But God made us all, in spite of the throng 
Who deem us, if not like themselves, made wrong. 
God rules : then perchance we are wiser for deeds 
That learn from feelings as much as from creeds, 



LOVE AND LIFE. 259 

When taught thro' the injuring zeal of our race 
That gentleness shows a growth in grace; 
When taught with Him, whose patience mild 
Sigh'd only to point the man to the child. 

XXXIX. 

When the world began, 

What gave it light 
Was the touch of love's electric might. 
That touch still brings, in the heavenly plan. 
The spark of the spirit that makes man man. 
His life all starts in a flash of light, 
A gleam of glory, blessed and bright. 
The while within him is lighted a fire 
Where burns forever the soul's desire ; 
And all he owns that gives him worth 
Is that inward glow that shines for earth, 
And shows the love that gave it birth. 

XL. 

Let husband and wife 

Be parted in strife; 
Or indifference worse, like a wedge, be driven 
Dividing the two whose vows were given 

The one to the other; 



26o LOVE AND LIFE. 

Still, still, how oft, as the years go by, 
A feeble voi'ce and a helpless cry 
May, far from the depths of the soul, conjure 
The LOVE OF THE PARENT, and sweetly assure 
The father and mother 

That none are alone 

But a part of life's whole. 

Whom love, when shown, 
Hath joined in souL 

XLI. 

The touch of the tenderest hands. 

Where lives were rent in twain. 
May weld again with the sturdiest bands 

The broken links of love's dear chain. 
All filled with a father's pride, 
The groom again has a bride, 
And thrilled by the hope in store 
The bride has a groom once more. 

XLII. 

Behold in the parent the world's first priest, 
To tender, till childhood's wants have ceast, 



LOVE AND LIFE. 261 

The flickering fires 
That fall and rise in rash desires ; 

To soothe and assuage, 
In a body that thirsts and soul that aspires, 
The wishes of youth with the wisdom of age; 

To kneel or to stand 

With a mission more grand 
Than any but His whose touch divine 
First lit the flame on the human shrine, 
Then left it alone where all men try 
To fan its burning or find it die. 



XLIII. 

And what are the laws for word or deed 
Of the priest whose ministry all will heed? 
Oh, what but laws of that in the soul 
Which starts the life that the laws control ? 
Ah me, if to love we owe life's giving, 
It must be love that rules right living! 
If thought be that which has gone astray, 
Then love must lead to the wiser way. 
No fighting of error by force does aught 
But change the statement not the thought. 

To ponder and halt 

Are seldom all fault ; 



262 LOVE AND LIFE. 

A natural smile 

Has in it no guile ; 
But many a false array of zeal 
Has frightened from frankness, and so from 

weal; 
And many a blast of pious hate 
Been blown by the devil to train his mate. 

XLIV. 

If deeds go astray, no force men know 
Can check what nature has made to flow. 
If wrong attract, and right estrange, 
Then love must enter, and subtly change 
What courses forth from the soul below. 
Oh, nothing of good can life secure 
Save when the springs of life are pure ! 

When this they be, 
Their earliest vent. 

As mad and free 
As a mount's cascade, may all seem spent 

In dashing away 

To spatter and spray, 

But yet may go 

In an onward flow 
To flood wide valleys where buds are elate, 
And fruit is forming, and harvests wait. 



LOVE AND LIFE. 263 

XLV. 

How early, alas, do the sheltering walls 
Of the home reecho the world's loud calls! 

No more, at the start, 
Than the note of a playfellow's drum or fife, 
Anon, from field, or haven, or mart, 
Is heard 
A word 
From messmate, partner, sweetheart, wife, 
And the ward that was has left for life. 

XLVL 

'T is well when two who love must sever 

If neither be taken from earth forever. 

'T is well for those of a ward bereft 

If hope of helping him still be left. 

How sad when the one we had led by the hand 

Who had looked to us for every demand 

Of body or soul has gone to the grave, 

And we must live, not die as we crave. 

But watch him pass to the sunless gloom 

Beyond that mile-stone mark of the tomb, 

And, led by those whom never he knew, 

Go journeying on the darkness through, 



264 LOVE AND LIFE. 

As all alone 

He makes his quest 
For a home to own 

In the land of the best ! 



XLVII. 

When children have grown and bear no trace 
Of that which charmed in the childhood-face, 
How well for the parent whose love but sought 
For the growth of their spirits in love and 
thought! 

How blest is their lot 
Whose parting means not 
A parting of soul ! How blest is the mother 

Whose boy is her lover ! 
How blest is the father who seems but a brother! 
How blest all the household who all discover 
That even a babe's life just begun 
Has a heart and a head that must be won ; 
That the youngest will with a wish has rights 

For all to respect ! 
Ah, what is there human that nature slights, 

And what in life that love can neglect ! 
The petty desire of the tenderest tone 
To God is as great and as dear as one's own. 



LOVE AND LIFE. 265 

XLVIII. 

Oh, would that to love one's child and kind 
And, no matter how men differ in mind, 
To give to each a right to bear 

His own soul where 
The spirit within him and world outside 
And God in both essay to guide, — 
Oh, would that these could insure for each 
That soul-communion that all would reach ! 
But no ; whoever would seek high aims 
Must oft forego all lower claims. 

Not a few there are 

Move on so far 

That never a man 

Helps on their plan, 

Nor a confidant's voice 

Confirms their choice. 
There are years for them, when the loveliest face 
Seems only a framing wherein to trace 
A part of an interest felt in the race. 
But oh, 
Let us believe they grow, 
The farther that thus they leave behind 
The common paths of all mankind, 
The higher the sound of their spirit's call, 
If the less to one, the more to all. 



266 LOVE AND LIFE. 

XLIX. 

No search for the truth with a willing mind 
Is a search for what one is willing to find, 
But a search for the willing of all mankind. 
Who seek but this, though many may leave them 
And loss of all in the home may grieve them, 
At last may slowly learn to trace 
Fair traits of the spirit in each new face ; 
And with love of the fellowman, turning 

from none, 
Come, at last, to find earth's family one. 
In the current of life, wherever it rolls. 
Like drops in the sea are our separate souls ; 
And the wind and the wave of the stormy weather 
That dash them apart may dash them together, 

For none are alone 

But a part of life's whole, 

Whom love, when shown, 
Hath joined in soul. 

L. 

Oh, why should a mortal from mortal part! 
No beauty was ever revealed in art 
Where rhythm and tone or color and line 
Did not combine: 



LOVE AND LIFE. 267 

And beauty of life was never one's own 
Who, when he had sought it, sought it alone. 



LI. 



The world is a ship that sails through space ; 

And men are voyagers journeying where 
One destiny waits for all the race, 

One common port for joy or care. 
Why not, like travelers, launched at sea. 

Join hands and hearts, and, in every way, 
If heaven be love, wherever we be. 

Begin the heaven we seek to-day ? 

LII. 

Alas for the will of which men boast, 
We all may lose what blesses us most ! 

No wonder of old 

The world was told 
That the first of our race with thought or voice 
Broke loose from the cords that bound his choice, 
His earliest cry: "The brave have deserts. 

Let the tree be our quest. 
In its fruit is food 

That is more than a test. 

The will that asserts 



268 LOVE AND LIEE. 

Its right to command, 
And calls up the good 

And the evil, shall stand 
The equal of God — for whose wrath who cares? 
All hail to a heaven for him who dares! " 
Alas for the finite with strength so slight! 
The equal of God must have infinite might. 

LIII. 

Some more, some less, with little to love, 
We all to the sky oft leave the dove. 
We delve away in the depth of our trade ; 
And all get dusty before well paid. 
Some like the dust ; some mourn its need ; 
And some are only intent to succeed. 
Too may grow prostitutes, hugging to all. 
Good, bad, or indifferent, beauty or scall. 
Till all wishes that worth would have kept 
Die out of the man unwept. 
No pride or shame for himself or his kind 

Brings up to the cheek one blush. 

Whatever is there is a counterfeit flush, — 
Mere paint on the surface of sham behind. 

LIV. 

There are times when the vilest of men disguises 
His foulness in forms that love most prizes ; 



LOVE AND LIFE. 269 

But alas ! his gracious and graceful gait 
The vilest of men takes on too late. 
It never appears like a natural trait. 
Nor long, I deem, will his mien cajole 

Those finding the whole 
Of the sweet in his coating and not in the 

soul. 
Who tastes that dainty, alas, but gnashes 
At apples of Sodom! — he bites into ashes. 
As well pursue a will-o'wisp's flare! — 
His fire of devotion is all in the air. 
As well touch a carcass! — those pulsings avow'd 
Are worms that go crawling round under a 

shroud. 
No soul is within him our soul to accost. 
His might, not right, of repentance is lost. 
The glut of the senses, like vultures above 
A life that is dead, leaves nothing to love. 



LV. 



Sad, sad, indeed, is the lot of those 

Whom no one mourns when their coffins close. 

How lone, when the robes of earth-life fall, 

Are spirits that hear no welcoming call ; 

Are spirits that see no smile of delight. 

But, flying in shame from all things bright, 



2 70 LOVE' AND LIFE. 

And, hiding in horror themselves have made, 
Live ever- in sunshine and dwell in shade, 

As all alone 

They make their quest 
For a home to own 

In the land of the best ! 

LVI. 

But even with sin 

May rescue begin, 

And out of a fall 

Come the safety of all, — 
Come the knowledge of good and as well as of 

bad, 
With the knowledge of ill from the shade of the 

sad. 
The knowledge of faith which alone can unite 
A soul to the Infinite source of light. 

LVII. 

It must have been in the years gone long 
When the world was young, and men went 

wrong, 
That love it was parted them all, and was able 
To hinder earth's ill by a flood or a Babel, — 



LOVE AND LIFE. 271 

To make life's disciplined right succeed 
Through the law of the Persian and lance of 

the Mede; 
And where truth moved on, tlio' few might know 

it, 
To rule by the meek and to lead by the poet 

LVIII. 

If ever the mind to faith be brought, 
Is it love that shall rule the inward thought? 
Is it love that shall rule the outward life 
And crown both source and sum of strife? — 
Is it only that which springs from the heart 

That can ever impart 
What fills the veins with vigor infused 
And thrills the limbs with strength to be used? 
Is it only this that can ever fulfill 
The way of the world's Creator's will, 

And thus create 

That heavenly state 
For which men work the while they wait ? 

LIX. 

What bliss, when gazing, dazed and dim, 
Down through the depths of mystery 
From which creation's wonders brim, 
To dream that all evolves above 



2 72 LOVE AND LIFE. 

A source that is ever the love of love! — 
Whose rule is a rule of sympathy, 
Whose law is a law of liberty, 

Whose home of union 

A holy communion 

Where none are alone 
But a part of life's whole, 

Whom love, when shown. 
Hath joined in soul I 

LX. 

Life is a mystery, mystery-bound. 
Above or about us no rest is found ; 
But, center' d in every cycling change. 
If one hope draw us, wherever we range, 
Then must it be that the soul inclined 
To merely an earthly love must find 

With each new light 

That cheers the sight 
The shaft of a corridor stretched af^r 
To where the glories of all love are, — 
A shaft to whiten and brighten the way 
To a hall and home where ends the day. 
And heaven and earth, life's groom and bride. 
Shall gather their children, trained and tried, 



LOVE AND LIFE. 273 

And those that have learned 

What faith has earned, 
Shall sleep the sleep of all the blest 
And dream the dreams of an endless rest. 



18 



SONNETS. 



275 



THE LEADER. 

'T'HE wind swept toward him, and the sunHght 
* glanced 
From his bright armor, but the smoke and dust 
Hid all his comrades in a train august 
Trailed from him, as in splendor he advanced. 
We deemed him leader, yet he merely chanced 
To be where all things round him could adjust 
To his position wind and sun, and thrust 
On him a prominence naught else enhanced. 
Oh blame not wind or sun, nor envy him! 
What though the world too highly rate his worth ? 
Who, who, for this, would choose a role so mean. 
So distant from the clouds that always dim 
The central fight? — It is one law of earth 
That godlike leaders work, like God, unseen. 



THE SOLITARY SINGER. 

"\1 7HIRRED like the moulting wings of some 

' ^ vast swan, 
The snow-blast broods above the landscape 
drear ; 

277 



278 SONNETS. 

But through the wild wind shivers, high and 

clear, 
The call of one lone bird that sings anon. 
Sing on, thou child of warmth and light, sing on ! 
I know thy loneliness, I know thy cheer. 
Thy call will never bring one comrade near, 
Nor make the world about less chill and wan. 
But, oh, no tempest can outblow, sweet bird. 
Those drafts thine ardent spirit draws to bring 
The breath of heaven to fill thy trembling breast, 
So thrilled to voice the world's Creator's word! 
Whom God inspires, though they unheeded sing, 
May be through mere expression wholly blest. 



STAKING ALL. 

OETTER to stake one's all on some high cause 
^ And lose, than never know the spirit's thrill 
When gates of heaven are seen, past mortal ill, 
Though light that bursts from them at once 

withdraws. 
'T is not the accent of this world's applause 
That marks the rhythm of the songs that fill 
Heaven's vault, and, with their sweetness, well- 
nigh still 
The wings of angels, tempted then to pause. 



OBSCURITY, 279 

Things viewed or heard can bring us bliss alone 
When, moved to pass beyond each earthly wall, 
And borne to hights mere feet have never trod, 
We reach a region far above our own, 
Where all souls live for one and one for all. 
And each finds full companionship with God. 



OBSCURITY. 

DEEM not thyself a slave because assigned 
To small obscurity where few can view 

Thy steadfast industry, thy purpose true. 

Thy sacrifice that seems all undivined. 

The feet that tread the treadmill no more bind 

The spirit to their petty task, than do 

Our brains bind thought whose words, by 
working through, 

Not in, this mortal framework, lead their kind. 

Full many a blaze-mailed knight men's cheers 
allure 

To wrong by which mere groundling-praise is 
won; 

While serfs, though soil-stained, keep life's re- 
cord pure 

Because their dust-hid deeds are wrought for 
none 



28o SONNETS. 

Save One for whom no life is too obscure 
To show' the spirit in which work is done. 



INFLUENCE. 

OH, for the hope that once inspired my tongue 
Ere life had known of all these weary- 
years, — 
Sad nights whose dreams were launched in 

silent tears, 
And sadder days whose deeds to wreck were 

flung! 
How nobler had my purpose died when young, 
Not numbed by blows, and not abashed by 

jeers. 
Nor hounded by a world of clubs and spears 
To make faith fly to cover, cowed and stung ! 
Yet why judge influence by what most men 

prize ? 
Must that which leads the spirit have recourse 
To what attracts to station, or to guise? 
Naught draws life heavenward like the sun- 
light's force. 
But sunlight never blest one man with eyes 
Lured but to gaze upon its blinding source. 



THE FINAL VERDICT. 281 

THE FINAL VERDICT. 

ACCEPT men's judgment of my work? — 
Not one 
Knows what I do, or why. I will not heed 
Those guessing how my structure may succeed 
From scaffoldings about it, scarce begun. 
I will not think with those who would let none 
But some "old master" dictate my new deed, 
As if a plan to fit the future's need 
Could all be fashioned on what once was done! 
Deem not the worthiest art- work wrought by 

those 
Whose thoughts and aims are easiest to find. 
Full oft the purpose that it subtly shows 
Will long elude the keenest searching mind ; 
And, sometimes, not before this life shall close 
Can what it means for spirit be divined. 



THE CHANCE THAT COMES TO 
EVERY MAN 

THE chance that comes to every man— the 
chance ! 
Ah, but it does not come to every man. 
The hero finds a place not in his plan, 
And, while he fills it well, the lines advance, 



282 SONNETS. 

The bugle calls, the flashing weapons glance ; 
The smoke of conflict hides the shouting van, 
And glory comes; but he, as he began, 
He guards the rear, — a slave of circumstance. 
The greatest victory may be quickest won ; 
And they who happen to be in the lead 
Are hailed as leaders, and the rest as led. 
But, oh, the work, ere fighting had begun! 
The drill! the foresight! — Well, some men suc- 
ceed. 
And some do not, and soon will all be dead. 



HEREDITY. 

WE know not whence came manhood ; but 
we know 
Whence came the man, — from unfulfilled de- 
sire 
When springs that welled from body quenched 

the fire 
That burned to fuse in one two souls aglow. 
Embodiment of wish, on earth below. 
For union which no earth-forms can acquire, 
Man is a spirit, aimed for regions higher, 
Entrapped and entrailed in a world of woe. 



UNCONSCIOUS CHARM. 283 

What wonder if he wander on and on 
Through ways that bring no respite and no rest ? 
What wonder if no crown that shines upon 
His brow can ever sate ambition's quest? 
What wonder if death only end, anon, 
A strife that never one deems wholly blest? 



UNCONSCIOUS CHARM. 

UNCONSCIOUS of their charm, the wind- 
swayed trees 
Their welcomes wave ; and hills with flower-lined 

ways 
Rise dawn-like, and, bedimmed with morning 

haze 
Like incense visible, make sweet the breeze. 
And, all unconscious of their charm as these, 
The fair, sweet children pass me in their plays, 
Nor dream that seeing them one joy conveys 
To me whom they feel no desire to please. 
Ah, thus unconscious, must each human will 
Inspire enchantment in a fellow-soul? 
Vain then to hope that our mere toil or skill 
Can gain our life or art its lordliest role. 
The spirit's touch that stirs the spirit's thrill 
Starts in a source too deep for man's control. 



284 SONNETS. 

IN THE ART-MUSEUM. 

FAR in the dome the limnered angels poise 
Above high cliffs of columns; while, below, 
The tiles gleam like a sunset-lake aglow 
When with each wavelet some new sunbeam toys. 
Now from without a troop of loud-heeled boys 
And shrill- voiced girls come bounding, then, 

more slow. 
Proceed on tiptoe, whispering as they go, 
Their whole demean the ghost of former noise. 
No temple this, yet sacred none the less 
Through art, the handcraft that transcribes 

man's best 
In feeling, thought, and skill, the wage of duty. 
Ah, well man's best may make this earth seem 

blest! 
The dim-veiled beauty of God's holiness 
Looms always through art's holiness of beauty. 



THE CLIMBER. 

FROM youth these mounts have lured me on, 
until 
In age I stand amid their frost and snow; 
And but when searching back through vales 
below 



SENSE AND SOUL. 285 

Descry what once inspired my tireless will. 
First, youth's hot fever, then numb age's chill, 
And naught between them of enjoyment, oh, 
Why could my life's long effort never know 
Rewards that could repay my toil and skill? 
Can it be true that aims too grand, too high, 
May miss the garden sought, where, hour by 

hour, 
The fellow- workers in new Edens meet? 
Can but the small seed's growing, by-and-by, 
Engarland all one's paths with leaf and flower, 
And keep the world he lives in fresh and sweet? 



SENSE AND SOUL. 

LET not mere earthly forms, however bright, 
Keep us of heaven's high glory unaware. 
They are but vehicles of life they bear 
Up toward the portals of eternal light. 
Let no one take the lamps men hang at night 
For stars that never leave the upper air ; 
Or think a dawn worth while comes anywhere 
Except where skies and sunlight bring the sight. 
Shame on the groundling thought that always 

weighs 
Against endangered rights that call aloft 



286 SONNETS. 

Its own low interests it would guard too well. 
What though these fall like cinders from the 

blaze 
Of love too ardent ? Ours are souls that oft 
We strip for heaven by flinging sense to hell. 



CLASS AND CASTE. 

CLASS me not with your classes, — me who 
came 
From God, and common dust! I will not don 
These robes, these badges, nay, nor be whirled 

on 
Behind the liveries that high state proclaim. 
For me no earthly splendor shall outflame 
Heaven's light, or that high realm it shines upon ; 
No earthly station satisfy, anon, 
Aims that arrested there would rest in shame. 
For him who judges manhood by its best 
There is no noblest rank not won by soul. 
No throne worth seeking reached on steps of 

sod. 
No life that ever can seem wholly blest 
But feels itself a part of that great whole, 
At one with which is being one with God. 



I 



THE FAITH THAT DOUBTS. 287 

THE FAITH THAT DOUBTS. 

THE church-bell tolls ; the organ tones begin ; 
Bright liveries flaunt the advent of the 
proud ; 
And, thronged through aisles in silks that rustle 

loud, 
The world without becomes the church within. 
With incantations exorcising sin, 
The white-robed choir and priests have marched 

and bowed; 
And pleas, politely phrased to please the crowd. 
Have flattered those whose coin the coffers win. 
And thus, forsooth, with lip and eye and ear 
Men seek to honor him whose one chief call 
Was ' * Follow me. " Were they to meet him here. 
Could those whose faith these outward forms 

enthrall 
Trust to the spirit in him, or revere 
The kind of living for which he gave all? 



BROADENING ONE'S OUTLOOK. 

OH, not the outward things that may incite 
Give the true measure of the inward aim ! 
Our minds are deeper than our deeds proclaim ; 
And only thought can make them move aright. 



288 SONNETS. 

In youth all secret loathings leap to light. 

We hunt for what has caused them as for game, 

Blow loud our horns, and him they halt not 

blame ; 
Nor rest till nothing hostile loom in sight. 
In age, grown mild, we rather would not see 
The forms once fought, we rather would not 

mind 
Than mend the lack of traits once highly prized. 
Ah, has the earnest aim then ceased to be? 
Or have our thought-trained spirits learned to 

find 
Some worth in things that once we but despised? 



OUR AFFINITY. 

IN that dear sport where Cupid leads the chase, 
Of heavenly light is framed each gentle dart; 
And where it speeds, with photographic art. 
It leaves an image nothing can efface. 
No laws for merely seed and soil debase 
The methods used for love within the heart. 
That heart responds, before a sprout can start, 
With flower and fruit whose growth no seasons 
trace. 



MY ACTRESS. 289 

Yes, all through life, whenever come in view 
Those helper-spirits, always on the quest 
For moods too like their own moods to rebuff 
The thought that is to their own thinking true, 
To know our own twin angel from the rest. 
One touch, one look, one accent is enough. 



MY ACTRESS. 

HER pictures, not herself, affect me so, — 
Her finished photographs, but not the 
plates 
Where alchemy's dark conjuring creates 
What rises from the glassy deeps below. 
My life is loveless, and her play can show 
That which I might have loved, and so it mates 
And cheers my soul, the while lone wish awaits 
The spirit-form that haunts the life I know. 
Real lovers, hand in hand, may fail to see 
How she, with feigned familiarities. 
Can make more firm my faith in my ideal. 
Ah, they wot not that life has left to me 
But dreams of that which might be, not what is; 
And, while no dream holds her, I feel them 

real. 

19 



290 SONNETS. 

THE FIRST FASCINATION. 

ACROSS the threshold of this life below, 
Oft comes a form more sacred than of 
friend, 
With which, entranced by love, we onward wend, 
Our thoughts, our cheeks, our pulses all aglow. 
Oh, ye that boast uprightness, do ye know 
How sweet a tone might then have bid it end ? 
Were such not heard or heeded, 't will be 

kenned 
Some day that some good angel made it so. 
Thou first of lovers, when this life goes by, 
Its lists made out and all things understood. 
If right be ours, what shall we owe the touch 
Of thy dear hand, and thy pure word and eye ! 
The saved think less that they themselves were 

good 
Than that they were not tempted overmuch. 



THE LOST FRIEND. 

I WOULD not doubt your word, — nor could 
gainsay 
The proof you show me, blind be to that fire 
Which, blazing in the torch of your desire. 
Makes all my night of doubt as bright as day. 



FOR A BOOK OF CONTRIBUTIONS. 291 

But side by side with him through all the way 
I toiled till now ; nor ever could aspire 
To aught past where he seemed to call me higher, 
And lead straight onward, if I dared to stray. 
Why, we were like two arms that limb one frame, 
Two hands that ply one work, two eyes that trace 
One onward path, two ears that heed the same 
Inciting cry, two steeds that lead the race 
Yoked to one car, twin rivals for one aim, — 
To think my friend base, I myself were base. 



FOR A BOOK MADE UP OP CONTRIBU- 
TIONS FROM AUTHORS. 

OH, not for wealth or fame do poets yearn 
With ardor fired to burnish phrase and 
line! 
Nay, not for this ! Their fervor would enshrine 
In forms as bright bright thoughts that in them 

bum. 
What luck is mine, then, freed from all concern 
About how I a setting may design 
To make my paste another's gem outshine? 
My light, though slight, a beacon's place may 
earn! 



292 SONNETS. 

Less due to oil than to reflectors round 

A wick's weak flicker is the blaze that blinds. 

How mine should blaze for you, then, gazing at 

This offering, haloed all about, ray-bound 

By bright reflections of the brightest minds ! — 

Art's proof is in the setting. Judge by that. 



FORD'S GLEN, 

WILLIAMSTOWN. 

WHEN first I followed up thy modest brook, 
And left the northwest road, and came 
on thee, 
How grand thy wood-crowned rocks appeared 

to be 
Whose high-arched foliage heaven's dim light 

forsook ! 
But when, years later, I came back to look 
On what so awed, I stood amazed to see 
How small and shrunk, when shorn of every 

tree, 
Were all that I for lofty cliffs mistook. 
Then, in my college-town, I joined, once more, 
The mates I so had honored in my youth. 



PRINCETON UNIVERSITY. 293 

Alas, in some, no mystery seemed to lurk 
Where hights of promise had so loomed of yore ! 
Has life no sphere in which one finds, forsooth, 
No wrong to nature wrought by man's mean 
work? 



PRINCETON UNIVERSITY. 

WELL placed, my Princeton, on the fore- 
most range 
Where Allegheny uplands first appear 
Bent down to greet the sea, bent up to rear 
What walls our continent of rock and grange ! 
If English sires, too loyal to seek change. 
Their Kingston, Queenston, Princeton founded 

here, 
It made no Witherspoon nor Stockton fear 
A throne that dared their new land's rights 

estrange. 
Nor now shall Princeton, welcoming to her 

school 
The thought of Europe, find her own less bold 
Because of that which from abroad is drafted. 
Let stay thy "classics " ! No one not a fool 
To get new learning need forget the old ; 
And minds, like fruit-trees, bear their best when 

grafted. 



294 SONNETS. 

IN PRINCETON CEMETERY. 

THERE are few kindred places on the earth 
Where rest as many great men as lie here ; 
Or, in proportion, more men to revere 
Of those whose learning was outweighed by- 
worth. 
Not strange then that, at many a household- 
hearth 
And student desk, our generation fear 
To change or question aught these men held dear ; 
As if, forsooth, a saint could need new birth! 
Yet all whose learning brings them fame to last 
Begin by doubting what earth claims it knows. 
Why should not their true follower do the same? 
Think not the present can but phase the past. 
The fire whose dying brand so steadfast glows 
Once proved its life through fiickerings of its 
flame. 



IN BONAVENTURE CEMETERY, 

SAVANNAH. 

THE live-oak's bending boughs, gray-draped 
in moss. 
Like mourning sentinels, guard the winding 
ways; 



THE GRAVE OF GENIUS. 295 

But under them each grave the eye surveys 

Is wreathed with flowers that breezes gently 

toss. 
Ah, if the bowed oaks fitly frame our loss, 
Beneath them crowd, too, symbols of the bays 
To crown our loved ones in those far, fair days 
That nights end not and storms can never 

cross. 
Though bodies fail, souls need not meet de- 
feat. 
Nay, let our spirits rise above like these 
Blithe birds that, winged from out sweet flowery 

beds, 
Soar up and sing through clouds of moss-hung 

trees, 
Sing as of dreams of beauty, sure to greet 
The slumber on which God such beauty spreads. 



THE GRAVE OF GENIUS. 

TREAD softly. Nothing mortal we revere 
Within the dwelling that we stand before. 
No form will come to meet us from the door. 
Only the spirit of the man is near. 
Only to spirit do men ever rear 



296 SONNETS, 

These shafts like arms uplifted to implore 
The world to honor those we see no more, 
But whose white souls the white tomb symbols 

here. 
Ah, what could ever lead earth's dull throngs on 
To those bright goals, concealed from mortal 

view 
In future glory for which good men plan. 
Except some spirit heaven had shone upon? 
Our awe for genius is a worship due 
To that which comes from God and not from 

man. 



SONGS AND HYMNS. 

FROM VARIOUS SOURCES PUBLISHED AND 
NOT PUBLISHED. 



297 



WHERE DWELL THE GODS? 

WHERE dwell the gods? 
Where dwell the gods? 
Oh, dwell they in the sky? 
Or come they near in gloom or gleam 
Of earth or air or wood or stream? 

Oh, yes, the gods are all on high; 
But, robed in all that teem or seem 
Where eye can spy or fancy fly, 
The gods are always nigh. 



How speak the gods? 
How speak the gods? 
In thunder from the sky? 
In storms that o'er the cloud-banks pour, 
Or dash in waves along the shore? 

Oh, yes, the gods are all on high; 
But not alone in rush and roar, 

Wherever breeze or breath can sigh 
The gods are always nigh. 
299 



300 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

How touch the gods? 
How touch the gods? 
Oh, reach they from the sky- 
Wherever airy fingers brush 
The leaves that throb, the cheeks that flush? 

Oh, yes, the gods are all on high; 
But in the thrills that fill the hush 
When naught without is passing by, 
The gods are always nigh. 

Where look the gods? 
Where look the gods ? 
In glances from the sky? 
Down through the lightning's death-dealt blaze, 
Or thrilling through the starry rays? 

Oh, yes, the gods are all on high; 
But in the looks that on us gaze 
From out the love-lit human eye 
The gods are always nigh. 

— Written for " The Aztec God.'* 



ALL HAIL THE GOD! 

ALL hail the god ! All hail and laud 
The god we now enthrone. 
Whose realms extend, all bright and broad, 
Beyond the seas and stars and aught 



ALL HAIL THE GOD! 301 

That ears have heard, or eyes have sought, 

Or hands could ever own. 
All hail the god! All hail the god! 

Upon the man we call; 
But bright behind the gaze we greet, 
There gleams a glory yet to meet 
Our souls beholding past the gloom 
Of toil and trouble, tear and tomb, 

The god beyond it all. 



All hail the god ! All hail and laud 

The god we bow before, 
Whose altar fires, while all are awed, 
Are lit in souls that flash through eyes 
That light for heaven itself supplies, 

Nor could one wish for more. 
All hail the god! All hail the god! 

Upon the man we call; 
But bright behind the gaze we greet, 
There gleams a glory yet to meet 
Our souls beholding past the gloom 
Of toil and trouble, tear and tomb. 

The god beyond it all. 

— Idem. 



302 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

OH, NOT WHAT LIFE APPEARS TO BE. 

OH, not what life appears to be, 
Is what in life is true. 
Inveiled behind the forms we see 
Are things we cannot view. 
What but the spirit working through 
The guise men wear to what they do 
Reveals the force that, foul or fair, 
Awakes and makes the nature there? 

The sunshine shows the worth of suns, 

The moisture, of the shower; 
The stream of rills from which it runs, 

The fragrance, of the flower; 
And, oh, the spirit when it springs 
Above the reach of earthly things, 
As fall the limbs that feed the shrine, 
Reveals the life to be divine. 

—Written for ''The Aztec God:* 



ALL HAIL THE SUN. 

ALL hail the sun that brings the light. 
All hail the rays that shower, 
And wake the barren wastes of night 
To germ and leaf and flower. 



O LIFE DIVINE. 303 

All hail the life behind the sun, 

All hail the gods that dwell 
Where men whose earthly race is run 

Are borne, and all is well. 

All hail the form of him who dies, 
All hail the soul that wends 

Up through the skies, and onward hies. 
All hail the gods, our friends. 

— Idem, 



O LIFE DIVINE. 

OLIFE divine, from thee there springs 
All good that germs and grows. 
Thy Light behind the sunlight brings 
The harvests to their close. 

O Life divine, thou art the source 

Of truth within the soul ; 
Thou art the guide through all the course 

That leads it to its goal. 

O Life divine, what soul succeeds 

In aught on earth but he 
Who moves as all desires and deeds 

Are lured and led by thee ! 

— Written for ** Columbus." 



304 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

O GOD OF ALL THINGS LIVING. 

OGOD of all things living, 
Our Sovereign, Saviour, Guide, 
All gifts are of Thy giving, 
All gains by Thee supplied. 
The stars that make 
High hopes awake 
But beacon light Thou seest. 
The stroke and stress 
That earn success 
Are but what Thou decreest. 
O God of all things living, 

Our Sovereign, Saviour, Guide, 
All gifts are of Thy giving. 
All gains by Thee supplied. 

O God, all good bestowing 

On souls that seek Thy way. 

Our hearts, with joy o'erflowing, 

Give thanks to Thee to-day. 

In all the past 

Whose blessings last, 
Thy presence fills the story; 

And all the gleams 

That gild our dreams 
Obtain from Thee their glory. 



HAIL TO THE HERO. 305 

O God, all good bestowing 
On souls that seek Thy way, 

Our hearts, with joy o'erfiowing, 
Give thanks to Thee to-day. 

— Written for '' Columbus ^ 



HAIL TO THE HERO, HOME FROM 
STRIFE. 

HAIL to the hero, home from strife, 
Pride of our hearts and hope of our life, 
Hail to his glancing crest and plume. 
Flashed like lightning into the gloom. 
Hail to the grit that, when borne from view, 
Out of the darkness brought him through. 
Sprout of the slough-pit, bud of the thorn. 

After the night 

The light of the morn. 
Crown him with flowers and cull them bright. 
Crown him, the man of the land's delight. 

Hail to the hero, home from strife. 
Pride of our hearts and hope of our life. 
Hail to the ring of the voice that taught 
Drumming and roaring the rhythm of thought. 



3o6 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

Hail to the tone that could change to a cheer 
Groan and shriek of a startled fear, 
Hushing to rills the flood that whirred, 

Chorusing night 

With songs of the bird. 
Shout him a welcome, and shout with might, 
Shout for the man of the land's delight. 

— Written for ''Columbus.'' 



O SOUL, WHAT EARTHLY CROWN. 



o 



SOUL, what earthly crown 

Is bright as his renown 
Whose tireless race 
Outruns the world's too halting pace, 
To reach, beyond the things men heed, 
That which they know not of, but need! 

O soul, what man can be 
As near to Christ as he 
Who looks to life 
Not first for fame and last for strife; 
But shuns no loss nor pain that brings 
The world to new and better things! 

— Idem. 



ALL HAIL THE QUEEN ! 307 

ALL HAIL THE QUEEN! 

ALL hail the Queen! 
No thrills can fill the lover's breast 
For that first love he loves the best, 
Like ours that throb to each appeal 
Of her in whom, enthroned above 
The nation's heart, we see, we feel 
The symbol of the sway we love, 
The while we hail our Queen. 

All hail the Queen! 
No cause can rouse the soul of strife 
In men who war for child and wife, 
Like ours that, where her battles be, 

Know not of rest until, above 
The foe that falls, enthroned we see 

The symbol of the sway we love, 

The while we hail our Queen. 

All hail the Queen! 
No loyalty can make a son 
Show what a mother's love has done. 
Like ours who press through land and sea, 

Our one reward to find above 
Our gains that show what man can be. 

The symbol of the sway we love, 

The while we hail our Queen. — Idem. 



3o8 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

WE LIVE BUT FOR BUBBLES. 

WE live but for bubbles, and those who 
know 
The way of the world their bubbles will blow. 
Ay, all but whose doings are fated to be 
No more than are drops in an infinite sea, 
Will blow them, and show them, till, by and by, 
They fill and float to the air on high ; 
Hoho ! hoho ! and the world will thus 
Know how big a bubble can come from us. 

We live but for bubbles that grow and glow 
The bigger and brighter the more we blow; 
And, borne on the breath of the breeze around 
Wherever the tides of the time are bound. 
There is nothing of earth or of heaven in sight 
But they image it all in a rainbow light; 
Hoho ! hoho ! and the world will thus 
Know how bright a bubble can come from us. 

We live but for bubbles a-dance in the blast, 
But who can tell how long they will last? 
So swell your cheeks, and puff, and fan. 
And make the most of them while you can, 
For if ever the breath in them fail, they will pop, 
And only be drizzles to dry as they drop ; 



OH, WHO HAS KNOWN. 309 

Hoho ! hoho ! and the world will thus 
Be done with the bubbles that come from us. 
— Written for ''Cecil the Seer.'' 



OH, WHO HAS KNOWN. 

OH, who has known the whole of light, 
That knows it day by day. 
Where suns that make the morning bright, 

At evening, pass away? 
Before the day, beyond the day, 

Above the suns that roll. 
There was a light, there waits a light 
That never leaves the soul. 

Oh, who has weighed the worth of light 

That gauged it by the gleam 
That came within the range of sight, 

And thought the rest a dream? 
Before that sight, beyond that sight 

And all that mortals deem, 
There was a light, there waits a light. 

Where things are all they seem. 

— Idem. 



3IO SONGS AND HYMNS. 

TWO SPRINGS OF LIFE. 

TWO springs of life, — in air and earth ; 
Two tides, — in soul and sod; 
Two natures, — wrought of breath and birth: 

Two aims, — in cloud and clod; — 
Oh, where were worlds, or where were worth 
Without the two, and God? 

Two movements in the heaving breast ; 

Two, in the beating heart; 
Two, in the swaying soldier's crest; 

Two, in the strokes of art; — 
Oh where in aught of mortal quest, 

Are e'er the two apart? 

Two times of day, — in gloom and glow; 

Two realms — of dream and deed; 
Two seasons — bringing sod and snow; 

Two states — of fleshed and freed; — 
Oh where is it that life would go. 

But through the two they lead ? 

Two frames that meet, — the strong, the fair, 

True love in both begun; 
Two souls that form a single pair; 

Two courses both have run; — 



IN THE WORLD OF CARE AND SORROW. 311 

Oh where is life in earth or air, 
And not with these at one? 

— Written for "Cecil the Seer." 



IN THE WORLD OF CARE AND SORROW. 

IN the world of care and sorrow 
Cloud and darkness veil the way, 
But in heaven there waits a morrow 
Where the night shall turn to day, 
Where the spirit-light in rising, 

Yet shall gild the clouds of fear, 
And the shadows, long disguising, 
Lift and leave the landscape clear. 

When the soul, amid that glory, 

Finds its earthly garments fall. 
Harm and anguish end their story, 

Health and beauty come to all ; 
No more fleshly chains can fetter 

Faith that longs to soar above; 
None to duty seems a debtor. 

And the only law is love. 

There is ended earthly scheming, 
Earthly struggle sinks to sleep; 

Souls have passed from deed to dreaming. 
And they have no watch to keep; 



312 SONGS AND HYMNS, 

For the world has wrought its mission, 
And the wheels of labor rest ; 

And the faithful find fruition, 
And the true become the blest. 

— Written for "Cecil the Seer." 

THE TRUMPETS CALL TO ACTION. 

THE trumpets call to action 
Through all the threatened land, 
No more is heard of faction, 
The time has come to band. 
What soul can see 
The state in fear, and fail to be 
Beneath the flag, enrolled with all 
That heed the trumpet's call? 
No patriots are they who can see 
The state in fear and fail to be 
Beneath the flag, enrolled with all 
That heed the trumpet's call. 

The best of men are brothers. 

The worst can be a foe; 
And not for self, but others, 

True men to battle go. 
No longer meek. 
Where wrong is cruel, right is weak, 



OH, WHY DO WE CARE? 313 

Or aught has brought the base to band, — 
They throng to lend a hand. 

No true men are they who can see 
The state in fear, and fail to be 
Beneath the flag, enrolled with all 
That heed the trumpet's call. 

Who, think you, live in story 

That live for self alone ? 
Who care to spread his glory 
That cares not for their own? 
In every strife 
That stirs the pulse to nobler life, 
The man that has the thrilling heart, 
He plays the thrilling part. 

No heroes are they who can see 
The state in fear, and fail to be 
Beneath the flag, enrolled with all 
That heed the trumpet's call. 

— Idem. 



OH, WHY DO WE CARE? 

OH, what is the matter, and why do we care 
For an empty, visionless whiff of air? 
Ah, though the wind be nothing to see, 
It bends and batters and breaks the tree; 



314 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

And oh, we know a breeze that serves 

To shock and shiver and shatter the nerves, 

And snuff the light of life with a breath; 

It has nothing to see, but it ends in death — 

Ho ho, ho ho. 

That blow, blow, blow, blow, blow! 

Oh, what is the matter, and why do we care 

For a silent sight of the sunshine there ? 

Ah, though no sound may rouse the ear, 

The bud and blossom of spring are here; 

And oh, we know a sight so bright 

It cheers the world like heavenly light, 

Till far away fly doubt and strife ; 

It has nothing to hear, but it lures to life — 

High high, high high. 

That eye, eye, eye, eye, eye! 

— Written for " The Ranch Girl. " 



AH, BOYS, WHEN WE FILL OUR 
GLASSES. 

AH, boys, when we fill our glasses, 
We may drink to whatever else passes, 
But whenever we quaff 
To life's better half, 
We must always drink to the lasses. 



« 



OUR LIVES ARE VAPORS. 315 

You may journey to Nice or to Paris 
For a cough that a song may embarrass; 

But the air of the West 

Is the freshest and best; 
And the sweetest, the air of its heiress. 

— Idem. 



OUR LIVES ARE VAPORS. 

OUR lives are vapors forced to roam, 
Of sun and storm the prey; 
But cling like mists, with hills their home, 
Together while they may. 

Chorus: And, friends, whate'er may come to you, 
Join hand and voice with mine. 
And swear the love that here we knew 
Shall never know decline. 

Our lives are vapors, whirled through skies, 
Where some by storms are torn, 

And some the sunlight glorifies. 
And some to heaven are borne. 

Chorus: But, friends, whate'er may come to 
you, etc. 



3i6 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

Our lives are vapors wrecked and lost. 

None sail their journey through. 
Ere long behind some blow that tost, 

Will naught be left but blue. 

Chorus: But, friends, whate'er may come to 
you, etc. 

— Written for "The Ranch Girl." 



MONEY AND MAN. 

THE time will come when money 
Will pay what work is worth; 
Will buy your task, and none will ask 

Your station or your birth. 
The right to earnings will be won 
By what a man himself has done. 

Oh!— 
The time will come when money 
Will pay what work is worth. 



The time will come when money 
Will not buy one a crown — 

To lift a snob above the mob 
And keep all others down. 



JUST THE THING HE THINKS. 317 

For men, to inward worth alert, 
Will only bow to true desert. 
Oh!— 
The time will come when money 
Will not buy one a crown. 

The time will come when money 
Will not seem more than man; 

But hearts will yearn with all they earn 
To help all men they can. 

In rolls of honor in that state, 

Great love alone will make men great. 
Oh!— 

The time will come when money 
Will not seem more than man. 

— Written for " The Little Twin Tramps,** 



JUST THE THING HE THINKS. 

THE sun gives everything its light ; 
The mind gives everything its thought; 
And what we deem is dark or bright, 

Reflects but what ourselves have brought. 
Pledge faith to all, — each goblet clinks; 
Their feast is yours to take your fill. 
Pledge faith to none, — your welcome shrinks. 



31 8 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

The thing one gets, or good or ill, 
Is just the thing he thinks. 

A college student with a bang, 

Who struts with open mouth about, 
And thinks, by slinging slaps of slang. 

His tongue can lick all censure out; 
Whose mouth, if busied not with drinks. 

When asked what he has learned at school, 
Is kept as closed as if a sphynx. 

For fear to show himself a fool, — 
Is just the thing he thinks. 

A belle, made so by wiggling waist 

And tongue that never ceases wagging, 
Who wanted once to wed in haste 

But long has found all lovers lagging. 
And powders now, and paints and prinks, 

And stuffs the thin and straps the stout, 
For fear, through ways that ape a minx. 

The world, alas, may find her out, — 
Is just the thing she thinks. 

A man who lost a former bride 

And mourns her memory on his hat, 

A hat he gently waves aside 

That he may gaze more ladies at, 



JUST THE THING HE THINKS. 319 

The while for each he dives yet shrinks 

For fear all love that he can vow- 
Behind that eye that winks and blinks 

Is hardly worth the having now, — 
Is just the thing he thinks. 

The man who boasts a family tree, 

And great grandpas that came and went, 
Which proves to all, the more they see. 

How great has been his own descent; 
And who from self-made people shrinks 

That now do what his grandpas did, 
Lest other men may see the links 

That bind to what he wishes hid, — 
Is just the thing he thinks. 

The gallery-bird with flying sleeves 

That tempt us here to shoot or shoo; 
The balcony-belle who half believes 

All music lures a beau to woo ; 
The dear bald head that nods and blinks; 

And each whose clapping bids us folks 
Repeat our notes like bobolinks 

Lest some may think he miss'd our jokes, — 
Is just the thing he thinks. 

— Written for ''The Little Twin Tramps.'' 



320 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

IT DOES NOT SEEM FREE TO ME. 

OH you who prate of freedom, 
Say, are you fools or knaves? — 
Of all the things men like the best. 

The first is being slaves. 
Who ever yet bought coat or hat, 

Or wore a gown or bustle. 
That dared defy the style in that 

Which made the parlor rustle? 
Though it may clothe our dearest friend, 
Outside our own set, in the end, 

The fashionless we hustle. 
Oh, you may call that being free. 
But it does not seem free to me. 

Oh you who prate of freedom, 

You send your babes to schools. 
And just when old enough to work. 

You turn them all to tools; 
And they, lest when, left free from strife. 

Mere rest should bring them pleasure, 
Are not content, till wedded life 

Is girt to slavery's measure ; 
Then, that more tyrants may be grown, 
Each stocks a nursery of his own, 

And calls each sprout a treasure: — 



IT DOES NOT SEEM FREE TO ME. 321 

Oh, you may call that being free, 
But it does not seem free to me. 

Oh you who prate of freedom, 

Work once was free for each. 
But comes the boss — his voice is heard. 

And work is past your reach. 
More cash you want. Your savings go 

To pay another's bill. 
And peace you want. Before you know 

You vow, perchance, to kill. 
You once had pay. On freedom bent, 
You serve a chief, nor get a cent. 

Who works you at his will: — 
Oh, you may call that being free. 
But it does not seem free to me. 

Oh you who prate of freedom. 

In home, in state, in church, 
If any realm could grant your wish. 

It would not end your search. 
The place where most men like to be 

Is where with most they mingle ; 
And such a place none ever see 

So long as they keep single; 
Nay, those, in all they care about, 
Who always leave their neighbors out, 

Find life not worth this jingle: — 



322 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

Oh, you may call that being free, 
But it does not seem free to me. 
— Written for ''The Little Twin T ramps J^ 



A FAIRY SONG. 

TO-NIGHT, to-night, my fairies white, 
The fair sweet air we sail. 
But first a tune to tease the moon 

That tempts us toward the vale : — 
Who cares to go where roses glow 

In sheen the moonlight sheds, 
And globes of dew are sparkling through 

The tent the spider spreads ? 
Your moonstruck fay may dance away 
And crush the rose-leaves all to hay — 

Who cares? — I don't! — Do you? 

But note you there that maiden fair — 

Ha, ha, a dainty bit 1 
She dreams a dream of love I deem. — 

Queen Mab 's a wicked wit ! 
Come, come, a jump ; and down we '11 thump ; 

And dance about her heart. 
'T will beat and beat — aha, how sweet 

The thrills we there shall start ! 



A FAIRY SONG. 323 

We '11 tickle her neck, and tickle her toes, 
And tickle her little lips under her nose — 
Who cares? — I don't! — Do you? 

And then we '11 huff that mourner gruff, 

Till he unknits his brow. 
We '11 whiz and whiz about his phiz. 

And pinch his lips, I vow; 
Then hide and seek in hair so sleek. 

And down each wrinkle spare; 
And ply his eye, if dry, too dry; 

And slide the lashes there; 
And when big drops begin to flow. 
Oh, how we '11 dodge the flood, oh ho! — 

Who cares? — I don't! — Do you? 

The moon may keep the earth asleep — 

We '11 twist things ere we go. 
The beau shall toss a baby cross, 

The belle shall beat her beau ; 
The men be boys ; and boys the toys 

Of girls that at them scream ; 
And when they wake, oh, how they '11 shake 

To find it all a dream! 
They '11 think of wind and fly and flea; 
But not of you, and not of me — - 

Who cares? — I don't! — Do you? 

— Written for "A Life in Song,'' I. 



324 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

LOVE AND TRUTH. 

COME to the love that is coming now, 
Come from the world away; 
Come to the source of joy, and bow. 

Bow to the sweetest sway. 
Find but love for the heart that grieves, 
Love for the work one never leaves, 
Love for the worth that work achieves, 
Love ; and woe will away. 

Come to the truth that is coming now, 

Come from the world away; 
Come to the source of right, and bow, 

Bow to the wisest sway. 
Find in the way where all is light 
Truth to impel the soul aright, 
Truth to make all that awaits it bright, 

Truth; and doubt will away. 

Come to love, and wherever you wend. 

All true life is begun. 
Ever in bliss toward which you tend, 

Joy and the right are one. 
Love — and the heart shall warmer glow; 
Love — and the mind shall brighter grow; 
Love with truth — and the soul shall go 

On to the lasting sun. 



THE WORLD THAT WHIRLS FOREVER. 325 

Come to the truth, and come as you may, 

All of love is begun. 
Whether you feel or think your way, 

Love and the truth are one. 
Love is the warmth, and truth the ray; 
Truth is the light, and love the day; 
Come to either, you wend your way 

Under the lasting sun. 

— Idem. 



THE WORLD THAT WHIRLS FOREVER. 

SEE the world that whirls forever, 
Round and round and weary never, 
Leaving sinning, glory winning 

Through its ever brightening way. 
Oh, in worth the deeds of duty 
Rival all the claims of beauty! 
Onward world, with steadfast spinning, 
Learn to turn a perfect day. 
Work cannot go wrong for aye. 
Woes but roll to roll away. 

World of faith, the years are dying 
In which clouds about thee lying 
Robe a wondrous waste of sighing, 
Empty throes of vain unrest. 



326 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

. Life, if right, whatever bearing, 
Still for true success preparing, 
Must outwit the wrong's ensnaring. 

Faith will find that faith is blest; 

Wrestle through its prayer for rest; 

Dwell with good a constant guest. 

World of hope, the stars are o'er thee. 
Dawn is waiting just before thee. 
Heaven's own light, thy life invoking. 

Every promise bright reveals. 
Fast shall rays that days are sending 
Heaven and earth in one be blending; 
Showing what the storm's dark cloaking, 

Tho' with rainbow belt, conceals. 

Night, too, blesses him who feels 

'T is a star in which he kneels. 

World of love, the heavens above thee 

Hold the clouds, and can but love thee. 

Though in spring the storm sweep o'er thee, 
April's rain is autumn's gain. 

Rock'd by wind and nursed by shower 

Life will grow to leaf and flower; 

Every harvesting before thee 
Shows the vintage is but rain 
Turn'd to wine the grapes obtain 
From the floods that fill the plain. 



FATHER OF OUR SPIRITS, HEAR US. 327 

Onward world, desponding never, 
Round and round, yet onward ever. 
On where sense and sorrow sever, 

Onward move thy mission through. 
Wisest deeds thy safety highten. 
Wisest words thy thoughts enlighten. 
Wisest views thy visions brighten. 

Holy wings thy way pursue. 

Heavenly outlines loom in view. 

Bliss is dawning down the blue. 

— Idem. 



FATHER OF OUR SPIRITS, HEAR US. 

FATHER of our spirits, hear us. 
And in mercy now draw near us. 
And with Thy blest presence cheer us. 

While our spirits look to Thee. 
Thou for whom the stars are burning, 
Do not, Lord, disdain the yearning 
Of the hearts to Thy heart turning. 
With their wants their only plea. 

Long in doubt's dark ways abiding. 
Lord, we need Thy light and guiding. 
Minds to know, and souls confiding 
In Thy precious truth and love. 



328 SONGS AND HYMNS. 

When Thine inward voice invited, 
And desires for good incited, 
We have still 'd, because we slighted 
All that call'd our souls above. 

Even if, forsaking pleasure. 

We have sought for truth like treasure, 

Oft we but would test the measure 

Of what our own strength could do; 
And, beyond our best endeavor. 
Full assurance found we never 
That, if wrong, the old life ever 

Could be cancelled by the new. 

Naught is left us. Lord, we feel it, 
Holy writ and reason seal it. 
And all loving lives reveal it, — 

But to cast ourselves on Thee. 
Here we come before Thee kneeling, 
Moved by far too little feeling; 
Yet to grace divine appealing, 

Wilt Thou, Lord, reject our plea? 

Nay, our souls for mercy sighing, 
Think of Jesus, living, dying. 
And they know Thy love replying 
Need not wait for worth in us. 



FATHER OF OUR SPIRITS, HEAR US. 329 

With our strength impair'd and sinking, 
From each nobler duty shrinking, 
Lord, we praise Thee most in thinking 
Thou wilt yet receive us thus. 

Thou wilt, Lord, from Thy high station, 
Pardon us, and send salvation. 
Till Thy Spirit's inspiration 

Make us all we ought to be. 
Void of good, yet Thou canst make us 
Fill'd with what Thou wilt. Oh, take us. 
Own us, hold us, nor forsake us, 

For our spirits look to Thee. 

— Idem., III. 



The End. 



PUBLICATIONS OF O. P. PUTN AM'S SONS 

A LIFE IN SONG 

By GEORGE L. RAYMOND 



i6mo, cloth extra, $1.25 



" An age-worn poet, dying amid strangers in a humble village home, 
leaves the record of his life in a pile of manuscript poems. These are 
claimed by a friend and comrade of the poet, but, at the request of the 
cottagers, he reads them over before taking them away. The poet's life 
is divided into seven books or ' notes,' because seven notes seem to make 
up the gamut of life. , . . This is the simple but unique plan, . . . 
which . . . forms but the mere outline of a remarkably fine study of 
the hopes, aspirations, and disappointments of life, ... an American 
modern life. . . . The author sees poetry, and living poetry, where 
the most of men see prose. . , . The objection, so often brought 
against our young poets, that form outweighs the thought, cannot be 
urged in this instance, for the poems of Prof. Raymond are full of keen 
and searching comments upon life. Neither can the objection be urged 
of the lack of the human element. 'A Life in Song' is not only dra- 
matic in tendency, but is singularly realistic and acute. . . . The 
volume will appeal to a large class of readers by reason of its clear, musi- 
cal, flexible verse, its fine thought, and its intense human interest." — 
Boston Transcript, 

" Professor Raymond is no dabbler in the problem of the human spirit, 
and no tyro in the art of word painting, as those who know his prose 
works can testify. These pages contain a mine of rich and disciplined 
reflection, and abound in beautiful passages." — Hartford Theological 
Seminary Record. 

" Here are lines which, if printed in letters of gold upon the front of 
every pulpit, and practised by every one behind one, would transform the 
face of the theological world. ... In short, if you are in search of 
ideas that are unconventional and up-to-date, get ' A Life in Song,' and 
read it." — Unity. 

" Some day Dr. Raymond will be universally recognized as one of the 
leaders in the new thought-movement. . . . He is a poet in the truest 
sense. His ideals are ever of the highest, and his interpretation is of the 
clearest and sweetest. He has richness of genius, intensity pf human 
feeling, and the refinement of culture. His lines are alive with action, 
luminous with thought and passion, and melodious with music." — 
Cleveland World. 

'' The main impulse and incident of the life are furnished by the enlist- 
ment of the hero in the anti-slavery cause. The story of his love is also 
a leading factor, and is beautifully told. The poem displays a mastery 
of poetic rhythm and construction, and, as a whole, is pervaded by the 
imaginative quality which lifts ' a life ' into the region of poetry, — the 
peculiar quality which marks Wordsworth." — Christian Intelligencer. 

" It is a great work, and shows that America has a great poet. . . . 
A century from now this poem will be known and quoted wherever fine 
thought is appreciated, or brave deeds sung." — Western Rural. 



PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S S ONS 

BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS 

By GEORGE L. RAYMOND 
i6mo, cloth extra, $1.25 



" In the construction of the ballad, he has given some notable exam- 
ples of what may be wrought of native material by one who has a tasteful 
ear and practised hand. If he does not come up to the standard of the 
ancient ballad, which is the model, he has done as well as any of the 
younger American authors who have attempted this kind of work, and 
there is true enjoyment in all that he has written. Of his other poems, 
the dramatic poem, ' Haydn,' is finished in form, and has literary' value, 
as well as literary power." — Boston Globe. 

" The author has achieved a very unusual success, a success to which 
genuine poetic power has not more contributed than wide reading and 
extensive preparation. The ballads overflow, not only with the general, 
but the very particular, truths of history." — Cincinnati Titnes. 

" It may well find readers in abundance . . . for the sake of the 
many fine passages which it contains. . . . 'Ideals made Real' has 
one point of very high excellence ... we have in the conception of 
the character of Edith the work of a genuinely dramatic poet. ... In 
Edith we have a thoroughly masculine intellect in a thoroughly feminine 
soul, not merely by the author's assertion, but by actual exhibition. 
Every word that Edith speaks, every act that she does, is in accord with 
this conception. ... It is^ sufficient, without douDt, to give life to a 
less worthy performance, and it proves beyond doubt that Mr. Raymond 
is the possessor of a poetic faculty which is worthy of the most careful 
and conscientious cultivation." — ^. Y. Evening Post. 

" A very thoughtful study of character . . . great knowledge of 
. . . aims and motives. . . . Such as read this poem will derive 
from it a benefit more lasting than the mere pleasure of the moment." — 

Londofi Spectator. 

"Mr. Raymond is a poet emphatically, and not a scribbler in rhyme.' 
London Literary Churchman. 

" His is no mere utterance of dreams and fancies. His poetry takes 
hold on life ; it enters the arena where its grandest and purest motives 
are discussed, and by the vijjor and beauty of the language it holds itself 
on a level v.'ith the highest themes. . . . Every thoughtful reader . . . 
will wish that the poems had been longer or that there had been more of 
them. It would be possible to quote passage after passage of rare 
beauty."— ^'V/ca Herald. 

'* . . . Rhythmical in its flow and deliciously choice in language 
. . . indicating a deep acquaintance with human nature, while there 
is throughout a tone that speaks plainly of a high realization of the divine 
purpose in life . . . Not the least charming characteristic is its rich- 
ness in pen-and-ink pictures marked b>» rare beauty and presenting irre- 
sistibly that which the poet saw in his mind's eye. . . . We confidently 
promise that any one taking it up will enjoy the reading throughout, thaT 
is, if there is any poetry in him. — Boston Evening Journal. 



PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



THE AZTEC GOD, AND OTHER 
DRAMAS 

By GEORGE L. RAYMOND 
i6mo, cloth extra, I1.25 

*' The three dramas included in this volume represent a felicitous, in- 
tense, and melodious expression of art both from the artistic and poetic 
point of view. . . . Mr. Raymond's power is above all that of psy- 
chologist, and added thereto are the richest products of the imagination 
both in form and spirit. The book clearly discloses the work of a man 
possessed of an extremely refined critical poise, of a culture pure and 
classical, and a sensitive conception of what is sweetest and most ravish- 
ing in tone-quality. The most delicately perceptive ear could not detect 
a flaw in the mellow and rich music of the blank verse." — Public Opinion. 

" It is not with the usual feeling of disappointment that one lays down 
this little book. One reads ' The Aztec God ' with pleasure. . . . 
'Cecil the Seer' is a drama of the occult. In it the author attempts to 
describe the conditions in the spiritual world exactly as they exist accord- 
ing to coinciding testimony of Swedenborg, of the modern Spiritualist, and 
of all supposed to have explored them in trance states. Indirectly, 
perhaps, the whole is a much needed satire upon the social, political, and 
religious conditions of our present materialistic life. ... In ' Columbus ' 
one finds a work which it is difficult to avoid injuring with fulsome 
praise. The character of the great discoverer is portrayed grandly and 
greatly. . . . It is difficult to conceive how anyone who cares for that 
which is best in literature . . . could fail to be strengthened and 
uplifted by this heroic treatment of one of the great stories of the world." 
—N. Y. Press. 

"One must unreservedljr commend the clear, vigorous statement, the 
rhythmic facility, the copious vocabulary, and the unvarying elevated 
tone of the three dramas. . . . The poetic quality reveals itself in 
breadth of vision and picturesque imagery. One is, indeed, not seldom 
in peril of forgetting plot and character-action in these dramas, because 
of the glowing imagination." — Home Journal. 

" The time and place make the play an historic study of interest, aside 
from its undoubted high poetic quality and elevation of thought. . . . 
The metre of the dramas is Shakespearian, and that master's influence is 
constantly apparent. It is needless to say to those who know the author's 
remarkable abilities that the plays are substantial and reflect perfectly 
the author's mind." — Portland Transcript. 

" The conquest of Mexico . . . has furnished the world with themes 
for wonder and romance. These Professor Raymond has brought into a 
thrilling story. ... His studies in art and harmony give him a 
master's hand to paint the pictures that delineate the children of the sun. 
— Dayton Journal. 

" The work is one of unusual power and brilliancy, and the thinker or 
the student of literature will find the book deserving of careful study. — 
Toledo Blade. 

*' A work of high poetic art, and worthy of the reputation of its accom- 
plished author." — N. Y. Observer. 

" Poetical compositions of an unusually high order both in the ex- 
pression and in the dramatic conception."— Z^^ws^^r Times. 



PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

Books by Professor Raymond 



Dante and Collected Verse. i6mo, cloth, gilt top . $1.25 

"Epigram, philosophy, history — these are the predominant ele- 
ments . . . which masterly construction, pure diction, and lofty 
sentiment unite in making a glowing piece of blank verse. " — Chicago 
Herald. 

"The poems will be read with keenest enjoyment by all who 
appreciate literary genius, refined sentiment, and genuine culture. 
The publication is a gem throughout." — New Haven Leader, 

"The poet and the reformer contend in Professor Raymond. 
When the latter has the mastery, we respond to the justice, the high 
ideals, the truth of all he says — and says with point and vigor-^but 
when the poet conquers, the imagination soars. . . . The mountain 
poems are the work of one with equally high ideals of life and of 
song." — Glasgow (Scotland) Herald. 

"Brother Jonathan can not claim many great poets, but we think 
he has 'struck oil,' in Professor Raymond." — Western (England) 
Morning News. 

"This brilliant composition . . gathers up and concentrates for the 
reader more of the reality of the great Italian than is readily gleaned 
from the author of the Inferno himself." — Oakland Enquirer. 

Pictures in Verse. With 20 illustrations by Maud Stumm. 
Square 8vo, in ornamental cloth covers . . $ -75 

"Little love poems of a light and airy character, describing pretty 
rustic scenes, or domestic interiors. ... As charming for its illustra- 
tions as for its reading matter. " — Detroit Free Press. 

"Simple songs of human every-day experience . . . with a 
twinkle of homely humor and a wholesome reflection of domestic 
cheer. We like his optimistic sentiments, and unspoiled spirit of 
boyishness when he strikes the chord of love. It is all very true and 
good." — The Independent. 

The Mountains about Williamstown. With an introduc- 
tion by M. M. Miller, and 35 full-page illustrations 
from original photographs ; oblong shape, cloth, gilt 
edges. Net, postpaid .... $2.00 

"The beauty of these photographs from so many points of vantage 
would of itself suffice to show the fidelity and affection with which 
Professor Raymond pursued the theme of his admirably constructed 
poems. The introduction by his pupil, friend, and associate is an ex- 
haustive study. No better or more thorough review could be written 
of the book, or more clearly point out the directness and power of 
Professor Raymond's work. . . . Among his many books none 
justifies more brilliantly the correctness and charm of his rhetorical 
instruction, or his facility in exemplifying what he commends." — 
Hartford (Conn.) Courant. 

Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and Music. 8° . $1.75 

"The reader must be, indeed, a person either of supernatural 
stupidity or of marvellous erudition, who does not discover much 
information in Prof. Raymond's exhaustive and instructive treatise. 
From page to page it is full of suggestion." — The Academy (London). 



PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM' S SONS 

Professor Raymond's Art-Books 



Art in Theory. 8vo, cloth extra. . . , $1.75 

" A well grounded, thoroughly supported, and entirely artistic concep- 
tion of art as a whole, that will lead observers to apply its principles 
and to distrust the charlatanism that imposes an idle and superficial 
mannerism upon the public in place of true beauty and honest work- 
manship." — The Neiv York Times. 

" His style is good, and his logic sound, and ... of the greatest 
possible service to the student of artistic theories," — Art Journal 
(London). 

The Representative Significance of Form. 

8vo, cloth extra. $2.00 

" Evidently the ripe fruit of years of patient and exhaustive study on 

the part of a man singularly fittedfor his task. It is profound in insight, 

searching In analysis, broad in spirit, and thoroughly modern in metnod 

and sympathy." — The Universalist Leader. 

" An original thinker and writer, the charm of his style and clearness 
of expression make Mr. Raymond's book possible to the general reader, 
though worthy of the study of the student and %<^o\ax.^^— Hartford 
Courant. 

Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, as Representa- 
tive Arts. With 225 illustrations, 8vo. . $2.50 

" Expression by means of extension or size . . , shape . . . regu- 
larity in ontlines . . . the human body . . . posture, gesture, and 
movement . . . are all considered. ... A specially interesting chapter 
is the one on color." — Current Literature, 

" The whole book is the work of a man of exceptional though tfulness, 
who says what he has to say in a remarkably lucid and direct manner." — 
The Philadelphia Press. 

The Genesis of Art-Form. Fully illustrated. Svo. $2.25 

" In a spirit at once scientific and that of the true artist, he pierces 
through the manifestations of art to their sources, and shows the relations, 
intimate and essential, between painting, sculpture, poetry, music, and 
architecture. A book that possesses not only singular value, but singular 
charm." — N. Y . Ti/nes. 

" A help and a delight. Every aspirant for culture^ In any of the 
liberal arts, including music and poetry, will find something in this book 
to aid him. — Boston Tiines. 

Proportion and Harmony of Line and Color in Painting, 
Sculpture, and Architecture. 

Fully illustrated. Svo. $2.50 
" No critical person can afford to ignore so valuable a contribution to 

the art-thought of the day." — The Art-Interchange (N. Y.). 

" One does not need to be a scholar to follow this scholar as he teaches 

while seeming to entertain ; for he does both." — Burlington Hawk-Eyt. 
*' The artist who wishes to penetrate the mysteries of color, the sculptor 

who desires to cultivate his sense of proportion, or the architect whose 

ambition is to reach to a high standard will find the work helpful and 

inspiring." — Boston Transcript, 



PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Books by Professor Raymond 



Poetry as a Representative Art. 8° . . . I1.75 

This book is an attempt, in accordance with modern methods, aided 
by the results of modern investigation, to determine scientifically the 
laws of poetic composition and criticism, by deriving and distinguish- 
ing the methods and meanings of the various factors of poetic form 
and thought from those of the elocution and rhetoric of ordinary 
speech, of which poetry is an artistic development. The principles 
unfolded are illustrated by quotations from the first English poets. 

"I have read it with pleasure, and a sense of instruction on many 
points." — Francis Turner Pal grave. Professor of Poetry, Oxford Uni- 
versity. 

"Dieses ganz vortreflSche Werk." — Englische Studien, Universitnt 
Breslau. 

"An acute, interesting, and brilliant piece of work. . . . As a 
whole the essay deserves unqualified praise." — N. Y. Independent. 

The Essentials of Esthetics. Fully illustrated. 8° $2.50 

A compendium of all the art-volumes, designed as a Text-Book. 

"So lucid in expression and rich in illustraton that every page con- 
tains matter of deep interest even to the general reader." — Boston 
Herald. 

"It can hardly fail to make talent more rational, genius more 
conscious of the principles of art, and the critic and connoisseur 
better equipped for impression, judgment, and appraisement." — 
New York Times. 

A Poet's Cabinet and An Art Philosopher's Cabinet, two 

books containing quotations, the one from the poems, 
and the other from the esthetic works of George 
Lansing Raymond, selected and arranged alphabeti- 
cally according to subject by Marion Mills Miller, 
Litt.D., editor of The Classics, Greek, and Latin, 
with illustrations. Each book 8vo. cloth-bound, gilt 
top $1.50 

" This Poet's Cabinet is the best thing of its class — that confined 
to the works of one author — upon which our eyes have fallen, either 
by chance or purpose. We can't help wishing that we had a whole 
book-shelf of such volumes in our own private library." — Columbus 
(O.) Journal. 

"The number and variety of the subjects are almost overwhelm- 
ing, and the searcher for advanced or new thought as expressed by this 
particular philosopher has no difficulty in coming almost immediately 
upon something that may strike his fancy or aid him in his perplexities. 
To the student of poetry and the higher forms of literature, it may 
be understood that the volume will be of distinct aid. " — Utica (N. Y.) 
Observer. 

"We risk little in foretelling a day when all considerable libraries, 
private as well as public, will be deemed quite incomplete if lacking 
these twin volumes. Years after the thinker has paid_ the debt to 
nature due, his thoughts will rouse action and emotion in the hearts 
and minds of generations now unborn." — Worcester (Mass.) Cazett*. 



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